The wife of a man who was killed at Heavenly Mountain Resort in Lake Tahoe has sued the ski area.
Chanel Whalen filed a lawsuit on January 24, 2025, according to The Sacremento Bee. Her husband Wesley Whalen died in 2023 after he slowly sank into the snowpack on a black diamond trail. The lawsuit calls Whalen’s death “…an unnecessary and preventable tragedy,” and says that he was buried alive, and slowly ran out of oxygen.
“It happened around a tree well but this wasn’t really a tree well incident. It was a loose-powder incident with the risk of a cave-in,” attorney Mike Gausco told the Placerville NewsWire.
The lawsuit says that Whalen was wearing a camera and “experienced significant emotional and mental trauma as he suffocated." Vail Resorts is named as the lawsuit’s defendant, the Bee says. It also says that despite an increased level of snowfall, Heavenly failed to add ski patrollers. Around the time of the accident, Heavenly Tahoe reported more than 2’ of snow in 24 hours. It was one of the snowiest winters in the region’s history.
“Injuries from falls, colliding with other individuals on the mountain, and hitting obstacles such as trees are undoubtedly inherent,” Guasco says in the complaint. “However, being swallowed by snow as if sinking in quicksand is not intrinsic in snowboarding…Instead, nothing was done. And as a result, he sunk into snow, as snow slowly covered him, as it became darker, as he was being buried alive, and as he slowly ran out of breath.”
Whalen had stopped on the trail and moved to the side in order to catch his breath when an “unmarked tree well” collapsed, the lawsuit says. Skiers and riders were not sufficiently warned that there was a threat of covered treewells. The lawsuit stated that rescue efforts were “nonexistent, insufficient, inadequate and poor.”
“Making the issue even worse, Heavenly had just blasted the upper portion of the mountain to cause an avalanche. Combining this freshly loosened powder with the practically unheard of levels of precipitation created a significant increased risk of cave-in,” the lawsuit says.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that 35 skiers and snowboarders died in bounds in 2024. The National Ski Areas Association reported that the majority of fatal accidents involve men on intermediate terrain. Those deaths often involve tree collisions or the snow surface. Snow immersion fatalities accounted for about 10% of deaths in the 2023-2024 season.
Whalen was an active member of the U.S. Deaf Ski and Snowboard Association. He was visiting the Lake Tahoe area from New York. He was 46 at the time of the accident, and a skilled and experienced snowboarder.
Related: Vermont Resort Announces Over $20k in Prizes for Hybrid Competition