If you’re sitting around today with some time on your hands, having taken at least a day off from the usual hurly-burly of life, I recommend that you plant yourself behind a computer — or go to a grocery store that’s open and get a copy of Sunday’s New York Times — and read “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek.”
It’s a sensational story, written by sports features writer John Branch, about a group of experienced and top-flight skiers and snowboarders who, early this year, let the prospect of an exciting and challenging ski run override good sense; they ended up getting caught in an avalanche that killed three of them a mountain in Washington state.
The story was months in the making, and here’s the twist: It was done, first and foremost, with the Web in mind. It started on the Web site last Thursday and concluded a day later, I believe.
The story integrates video, photos, graphics and personal profiles of the main players like that has never been done before by a newspaper. Rebecca Greenfield of The Atlantic Wire Web said the project “makes multimedia feel natural and useful, not just tacked on.”
I saw the story on The Times’ home page last Thursday and realized from a glance at the title and a full-screen video of snow blowing off a mountain side that it was probably going to be very captivating. I resisted the urge, however, to jump into the Web version because I simply don’t like to read extremely lengthy stories online, while sitting at my desk.
On Sunday, The Times published a 14-page, special section with the story and accompanying photos and graphics. When opened, the entire front and back pages of the section depicted the back side of Cowboy Mountain — a so-called “backcountry” skiing area — where the disaster took place. A teaser at the bottom right-hand side of the front page said, “A group of world-class skiers and snowboarders set out to ski Tunnel Creek. Then the mountain moved.”
It took me at least a couple of hours to read and absorb the story and accompanying features, but the time flew by. Like a good writer can do, Branch transported me to Cowboy Mountain and I wanted to stay there until the drama had played all the way out.
John Branch
I couldn’t remember having read anything by Branch, but when I ran him through Google, I found that late last year he had written another in-depth feature called “Punched Out: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer.” That story, which ran over four days, tracked the career and related death of hockey player named Derek Boogaard. (I remember the series clearly, but I didn’t read it.)
Telling one interviewer how he got Boogard’s family to cooperate with him in doing the story, Branch said: “I committed to doing it right, taking time, and I told them we would probably put more resources into this than any other sports story this year.”
That was 2011…Well, he did it again this year — in an even bigger way — and the readers are the beneficiaries.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Also read about Dylan Smith, 23, the hero from Belle Harbors section of the Rockaways NY, who saved many lives during Hurricane Sandy in October.
He died on vacation in a surfing accident.
Another lost hero..
I agree with you, Fitz, that Branch’s avalanche story is a terrilfic combination of multi-media and an excellent tale. It could have been even better with some tighter editing. A few parts of it got bogged down, were redundant and lost the narrative tension that most of the story captured. I did read his series last year on the death of hockey player Derek Boogaard. It was outstanding.
You’re always looking with the eye of an editor — an editor pointing toward The Big Prize. You’re probably right, but, to tell you the truth, I just read it as a reader and got swept up in it…The only thing I noticed was that, on the graphic that showed the location of each skier at the time of the avalanche, a guy named Carlsen was unaccounted for. Could have been because there was another guy named Carlson. He was accounted for. To me, that was the most memorable graphic. I kept flipping back to it as the drama picked up.
First things first! Merry Christmas to you and yours Fitz! May the joy and purpose of the Christmas Season be with you each and every day! God Bless!
Stories like this is where the Times still ” gets it.” Unfortunately, neither the hoi polloi (or maybe the hoi Pioli?) share your appreciation, our appreciation, for the written word.
Words of wisdom spoke to me today from the bathroom walls of the new Huddle House at 39th-ish and Broadway. Not graffiti, but corporate mantra. Born to be wild. Live to outgrow it.
I understand the needs of the thrill seeker. Been there done that. While I still look for the occasional adrenaline rush, most often found on my motorcycle, I tend to contemplate the laws of physics and reality. This skiing group seems to have tempted fate with arrogance and reckless abandon. Mother Nature is not always a human-biased judge, jury and executioner.
Merry Christmas to you, too, Smartman. Thanks for checking in this Christmas Day. Good to be here, happy and healthy, for another one.
Yes, we are lucky if we live to outgrow the inclination, shared by many of us, to run wild.
Just as I tell the kids in my middle-school and high-school classes not to get caught up in the group mentality and submit to peer pressure, this group of intelligent adults did exactly that. They were looking for the thrill, and the compulsive will of the majority prevailed.
Didn’t you love the good sense of the one woman who, when she realized the group was headed down the back side of the mountain, into the backcountry, said essentially, “Uh, uh, not me,” and veered away from the group?
Agreed Fitz. Common sense ain’t all that common. It’s amazing how the human desire for conquest can over-ride all logic. Sadly, many will read this story, find themselves in a similar position and say no way that will happen to me. You either meet your Maker at the Pearly Gates or your Maker’s Mark back at the lodge.
Great story. Loved the special effects, videos etc…
I’m glad you took the time to read/experience it, Chuck. I hope you had a Merry Christmas.
You too. :)
Merry Christmas to you and yours, Jim, albeit a day late. I’ve been skiing only once in my life and that was nearly 20 years ago. These days I have no desire to even sled down the hill that begins across the street from me, knowing full well that the steep hill leads directly to the rocky bank adjacent to the railroad track and beyond that the ever-treacherous Missouri River at Leavenworth. I found this story to be of immediate interest to me when I realized that it had occurred in the vicinity of Leavenworth, Wash. I’d heard of this other Leavenworth but have never been there. Anyway, this was excellent reporting, a riveting account of a tragedy that should’ve never happened. Can we look for The Star to do something like this somewhere down the road, especially now that it has decided to implement a Pay Wall for online content?
Jim, this is a well-timed post since I believe there have been at least two deaths caused by avalanches out west within the past few days.