The cold, fluffy snow was “every skier’s dream.” But it turned into a dramatic rescue when lifelong skier Carson Schmidt and his friend Erik Masuda spotted ski tips poking out of the snow after finishing a run at Palisades Tahoe.
Schmidt and Masuda spent seven hours driving up to the resort at Lake Tahoe on Wednesday, Feb. 18.
“We couldn’t decide where we wanted to go and we finally picked. We’re like, oh, let’s go over here between KT and Olympic Lady, down those chutes,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt said Masuda went first to film Schmidt’s descent. When he got to the bottom, he glanced past Masuda to see ski tips.
“Hey, they good?” he asked his friend in a video originally posted to Instagram Wednesday, Feb. 25, pointing to the ski tips with his ski pole.
“And then we just went into action,” Schmidt told The Sacramento Bee.
Carson Schmidt, of Sacramento, and Bill Proffit, owner of Land Park Ski & Sports in Sacramento, work together at the shop on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. Schmidt, who recently rescued a skier at Palisades Tahoe last week, will become the new owner of the store starting March 2. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com
He and friend Erik Masuda, frantically begin digging the trapped skier out, the video shows.
“You OK? You OK?” Schmidt asks as they free the skier, who can be heard choking and coughing.
Schmidt called the incident “super scary.”
The skier apparently tumbled into a six-foot deep drift of soft snow and sank, Schmidt said. He said he assumed the man was trapped for two to three minutes before he and Masuda spotted his skis.
“His face was bright blue,” Schmidt said. “I don’t know how much longer he had.”
Schmidt said while he hasn’t been formally trained, he’s made a point to be knowledgeable about ski rescues.
“So, I kind of knew to find his face first, find his airway. So that’s where his instinct kicked in at that point,” he said.
He and Masuda encouraged the man to wait for the ski patrol for medical care, or at least to recover, but the man insisted he had to find his wife and skied away.
“He just took off,” Schmidt said.
Carson Schmidt, of Sacramento, holds a pair of skis at Land Park Ski & Sports in Sacramento on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. Schmidt and a friend helped rescue a man caught under snow at Palisades Tahoe on Feb. 18 — just one day after an avalanche killed nine people at nearby Castle Peak. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com
After taking a few moments to decompress, he and Masuda continued skiing. Schmidt said he didn’t see the man he rescued again.
“If the guy sees this, please reach out,” Schmidt said. “I’d love to know if you’re alright.”
Schmidt, 22, said he has been skiing since was 2 years old and works at a Sacramento ski shop. He mainly visits Palisades Tahoe to ski.
Palisades Tahoe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The incident follows several skier deaths at Tahoe-area resorts and the deaths of nine backcountry skiers swept away by an avalanche near Lake Tahoe.
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This story was originally published February 26, 2026 at 4:14 PM.
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Don Sweeney has been a newspaper reporter and editor in California for more than 35 years. He is a service reporter based at The Sacramento Bee.