Snowboarder ‘buried alive’ in snow at California resort suffocated, lawsuit says
The widow of a snowboarder found “buried alive” at a California ski resort calls his death an “unnecessary and preventable tragedy,” according to a new lawsuit.
Wesley Whalen, 46, died in 2023 after he took a break while on a black diamond trail at Heavenly Mountain Resort and “started to slowly, but consistently, sink into the snowpack,” according to the lawsuit filed Jan. 24 by his widow, Chanel.
Whalen was wearing a recording device on his body, and “the video shows snow collapsing on top of him, filling the hole he had just created,” according to the lawsuit.
He “undoubtedly experienced significant emotional and mental trauma as he suffocated,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit names the South Lake Tahoe resort’s operator as a defendant, saying the resort was negligent.
McClatchy News reached out to the operator, Vail Resorts Inc., on Feb. 7 and was awaiting a response.
Whalen was “an active member of the deaf community” and was at Heavenly as part of a group, the court filing said. He was a “skilled and experienced snowboarder,” according to the lawsuit.
Before his death in March 2023, Heavenly and the community were hit by “near continuous snow, the likes of which had not been seen in the Tahoe region in years,” the lawsuit said.
However, despite knowing the powder collapse risk was greatly increased, the resort didn’t add ski patrols, according to the lawsuit, which described rescue efforts as “nonexistent, insufficient, inadequate, and poor.”
News reports, based on information from the resort, said Whalen was in a tree well, “yet, there were no warnings, anywhere about the dangers of tree wells and cave-ins,” the lawsuit said.
Heavenly also didn’t fence off trees in runs, the lawsuit said.
“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,” according to the lawsuit.
The resort didn’t warn guests about the blasting, so “even skilled and experienced skiers and snowboarders would have no reason to believe the sink risk was as high as it actually was,” the lawsuit said.
Had Whalen been warned, he “could have taken precautions,” according to the lawsuit.
Before he died, Whalen stopped on the black diamond and moved to the side, “seemingly to catch his breath,” but he still was “well within the open trail,” the lawsuit said. The powder was “deceptively loose,” and the snowpack’s top layer appeared solid due to the blasting, the lawsuit said.
But, Whalen “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,” according to the lawsuit.
“By the time he was found,” the lawsuit said, “Wesley was dead.”
While falling or colliding with trees or other skiers or snowboarders are inherent risks, “being swallowed by snow as if sinking in quicksand is not intrinsic in snowboarding,” the lawsuit said.
Whalen’s death came after he and his wife, who’s represented by attorneys Michael Guasco and Nicholas Adamucci, tried “for an extended period of time” to have children, undergoing fertility treatment.
They planned to try again after taking a break, the lawsuit said.
Chanel Whalen “now will never have the opportunity to raise a child with a loving, dedicated, passionate, and wonderful partner,” according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.
South Lake Tahoe is about a 100-mile drive northeast from Sacramento.
This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 1:04 PM with the headline "Snowboarder ‘buried alive’ in snow at California resort suffocated, lawsuit says."
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