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Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

nytimes.com

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Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#101

Post by pinaceae »

MartinCron wrote: post #92
bencpeters wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overwhelming reaction I had to this was of how bad the group dynamic sounded. I don't really agree with "severe lack of training and practice caused deaths". Everyone involved had some degree of backcountry experience - many of them had a lot. The issue wasn't lack of training and practice, the issue was how many of the skiers ignored their training and didn't listen to what their experience was trying to tell th…

The group dynamic reminds me of a chat I had with a friendly guy at my local motorcycle shop. He calls it "rally fever" when a bunch of guys on motorcycles (or scooters, or whatever) get together for a ride and let their inhibitions slip just enough to take that turn just a little bit too fast. I am sure group rides are lots of fun, but I would be mindful of being extra cautious.

motorcycle group rides are the worst - overtaking a slower moving vehicle becomes way more risky. the first guy assesses, knows he will fit. second guy has enough power and reaction time to follow. the third+x goes in blind and behind and sometimes goes splat. sometimes because of a vehicle, sometimes because the vehicle in front blocked the view of a tightening turn.

riding in a group for a long time also gives you tunnel vision as you follow the guy in front of you all the time. if he goes down, target fixation kicks in and you hit him.

a good group has the rookies in front, to set the pace. rookies at the end mean the worst riders need to go the fastest.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#103

Post by scw »

typpo wrote: post #84
nikkisnow wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On linux, whether it's Chrome or Firefox, none of the videos play. Really great experience but would love to see the videos. When I get home, I'll have to pop open my Mac to get the full experience.

I had this issue but noticed it's because the Ghostery chrome extension blocks Brightcove, where the videos are hosted. Maybe you have a similar problem?

I also had this issue, in my case the culprit was the Kill-Flash extension. Adding nytimes.com and brightcove.com to the whitelist made everything work.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#104

Post by technotony »

I've a lot of experience in back-country, including places like Iran where I skied several peaks. The one time I got into trouble (we had to be rescued by helicopter) was a scarily similar situation to this. I was with a large group (12) of some of the most experienced back-country people I've ever met. I was far and away the least experienced. This group included two Everest summitteers and the head of a mountain rescue service. Because everyone was so experienced they all assumed everyone else was taking the right decisions so they could switch off and relax. Group dynamics are everything in this situation - as they are in any sufficiently complex environment. Luckerly, after a cold night in a snow hole, we were rescued but my learnings were:

1) You need to always have a leader

2) The whole group needs to be aware of the plan at all times, you cannot over communicate

3) Listen to the nagging voice of intuition - if something feels wrong check that feeling out

4) Experts are not always on the top of their name, especially when tired or cold

Stay safe this winter people!

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#105

Post by hannesfostie »

eigenvector wrote: post #65
grecy wrote: post #43

I'm an avoid back country snowboarder (split boarder) in the Canadian Rockies, and now further north into Coastal Alaska and I've spent many seasons as ski patrol, and taken numerous Avalanche training courses. After my first 4 day course, the message was very clear: "You are now the least knowledgeable people that should be in the back country". I kept thinking "I know just enough to know I know nothing". Reading th…

Many people, especially those who have acquired substantial skiing proficiency in a setting that is superficially similar to the backcountry (i.e. maintained and patrolled ski areas) do not truly appreciate the risks of backcountry travel in the mountains. We have become used to the concept that no matter what, help is just a phone call away. The mountains are a force of nature that we as backcountry users must have…

I'm an avid backcountry skier myself, and currently reading a book about avalanches by one of the leading experts in the field. He had a table in the book that considered 100 day seasons, and a 95% stability of snowpack (all avalanche slopes are safe 95% of the time, all the time, roughly and on average). That means a person with no knowledge is 95% safe, someone with perfect knowledge is 99.99% safe (I think that was the number he used).

The survivability rate ranged from 2 years (or was it even 2 months?) for those without knowledge, to 100 years.

Avalanches are scary. The mountains are scary. And yet there's no place I feel more at home. I wish I could do this more often, but right now I can't. In any case, I respect nature and want to learn as much about it as I can.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#106

Post by SiVal »

jashkenas wrote: post #91
fourstar wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not surprised since Jeremy Ashkenas works there. They've got probably some of the best front-end web developers and they're extremely smart for realizing that those kind of people are what it takes to keep them relevant today.

Credit where credit's due -- this project has nothing to do with me. A small army of talented folks from Sports, the Graphics department, Photo and Video put it together over the course of several months: http://cl.ly/LibF More details on how it was made here: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/198970/how-th...

Frankly, I'd like to have a detailed online course to teach me how to create something like this including annotated code, exercises, the works. If I ever learn enough to do it myself, I'm going to teach my kids. A spectacular demonstration of the creative possibilities of this new medium! Thanks for creating it.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#107

Post by grecy »

masklinn wrote: post #66
grecy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Certainly, anything they did after the avalanche hit wouldn't have made a difference That statement shows you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and clearly have no place commenting here. The reality is that how you react after an avalanche will absolutely impact the lives of those buried. > Or do you think they knew They seemed to know, but went against their gut. > Also, no amount of training can f…

> The reality is that how you react after an avalanche will absolutely impact the lives of those buried. The reality of that avalanche is that there was none: according to the doc' report, all three deceased were dead on arrival from blunt force trauma.

But you don't know that immediately after a slide, and you have to assume (hope) that's not the case and do everything your training has taught you to save those buried.

Making calls on your cell phone to report dead bodies is not included in that.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#108

Post by yitchelle »

jobu wrote: post #85
jrwoodruff wrote: post #71

The NYT just kinda blew my mind. A newspaper article just blew my mind. This is, by far, the best multimedia storytelling I think I've ever seen. Kudos to the team involved in putting this together, you've shown me the future of media and the internet.

I was reading some of the other comments here and wondering if anyone else thought the multimedia content upstaged the writing. This is the better than any kind of storytelling I've ever seen. Videos that auto play as you get to them. 3-D maps that rotate, zoom and plot a course as you scroll down. Path markers that draw on the map as the writer describes the scene. Hopefully more authors and artists will embrace thi…

My first thoughts were also on the same line as yours, but I guess that any disruptions (or mini ones such the way this story was delivered), we start off by being floored by the technology. Once the technology becomes ubiquitous, the content comes to forefront and becomes key.

I hope this trend of story telling with rich media content continues. Total immersion could be just around the corner.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#109

Post by lmm »

davidw wrote: post #12
picklefish wrote: post #7

What if the future of grade school textbooks was this. Learning would be fascinating. What a great design.

> Learning would be fascinating. I thought it was already, for many subjects.

It is, but somehow schools still manage to make it not so.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#110

Post by masklinn »

grecy wrote: post #107
masklinn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that how you react after an avalanche will absolutely impact the lives of those buried. The reality of that avalanche is that there was none: according to the doc' report, all three deceased were dead on arrival from blunt force trauma.

But you don't know that immediately after a slide, and you have to assume (hope) that's not the case and do everything your training has taught you to save those buried. Making calls on your cell phone to report dead bodies is not included in that.

> But you don't know that immediately after a slide

Sure, but that still makes your disagreement with the assertion that:

> anything they did after the avalanche hit wouldn't have made a difference.

wrong, especially when it was followed (and clarified) by:

> At least that is the impression I got from the description of the injuries.

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