The Castle Peak region, site of the avalanche, is a backcountry area in the Sierra Nevada, popular year-round and easily accessible from the interstate that connects the San Francisco Bay Area to the Lake Tahoe region.

The brother of an 11-year-old girl who was trapped in a backcountry avalanche in Utah was able to locate his sister, but she later died in the hospital after her rescue, according to officials.

Two separate avalanches in Utah killed an 11-year-old girl and a father this week, marking the state's first snowslide fatalities of the winter season.

The men were skiing on Saturday in a backcountry area of the Big Cottonwood Canyon near Salt Lake City, said officials, who urged caution in unstable snow conditions.

Authorities say the bodies of eight backcountry skiers have been found and one remains missing after an avalanche near Lake Tahoe in California.

The eight nearby skiers helped pull the men from the snow before they were taken to a Salt Lake Valley hospital.

"Everybody wants to point fingers," a top avalanche expert said.

Authorities have launched a search following an avalanche in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah Saturday, according to local reports. Multiple people may have been trapped by the avalanche, Chris Bronson, public information officer for the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office,