Interesting to note that all the snowboarders refused to join the crowd and opted to go their own way. Erin the liftie, who actually took off skiers right on her own; tall Tim, who took off alone hard left; and pankey and Carlson who followed tall Tim and ultimately discovered the bodies. Snowboarders are stereotypically not crowd followers, and that characteristic might have saved them here.
Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
131–140 of 143 posts
Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
#132this is amazing.
can anyone explain to me why this comment would be downvoted?
Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
#133What am I missing here? It looks visually great, but aren't we basically looking at text with embedded videos? On Twitter the buzz about this made me this was a brand new way of presenting articles - you know what it reminds me of most? A book.
This comes across as comparing poor journalism to good journalism and complaining that you it's all 'just words,' so what's the 'big deal?'
Let me try again - the buzz on twitter I referred to was focussed on how this design represented a bold new way of presenting journalism to an audience.
My point is; to characterise presenting an article in this interface as revolutionary strikes me as incorrect - it instead harks back to a format that we're all familiar with and which works very well. Which, as I wrote, is the book.
The quality of the journalism doesn't come into it; I'm sure it's very good.
Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
#134Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
#135This kind of "article" is probably why the NYT paywall is actually working. A "newspaper" filled with these types of stories would actually be worth paying for.
Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Easy access to a high-risk environment is a significant element of this story. Two lift trips to an expert ski area run is a low barrier, several hours of hiking/showshoeing to a backcountry run is a much higher barrier. When only two lift trips and a warning sign are the barrier to a backcountry run, we should not be surprised that people who might be reluctant to spend several hours working hard to get to the top o…
It's possible, but it could also work the other way around.
There may be significant pressure to "Go" if it takes a while to get to the destination, and you have misgivings only at the destination. I.e. sunk-cost fallacy -- we hiked for days to get here, and it looks a bit iffy, but we're not turning back now...
Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
#137I'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…
Severe lack of training and practice caused deaths. That is not what I got from reading that. Certainly, anything they did after the avalanche hit wouldn't have made a difference. At least that is the impression I got from the description of the injuries. and a lot of them knew better. And I think you somewhat agree. Or do you think they knew, but weren't trained well enough? Thinking about how this could happen, I t…
I intended to respond to the parent post:
No, I think it's more insidious. These people knew what to do but social pressure and group dynamics kept all but one from opting out. The best decision they could have made was to abandon the run entirely. More training would not really have helped, as it would just confer more confidence.
Maybe the real training that people need for these kinds of high risk sports is to watch their friends die.
Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
#138Earlier 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.
No, two reports were likely death by suffocation from not being able to expand their chest to breathe in.
Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
#139Not to speak ill of the dead but I don't know WTF these people were thinking. I was skiing at Crystal (~80 miles away) the same day. IIRC we had about 14-16" of freshies that day. It was GORGEOUS in bounds, why go out? I had checked the avalanche data for a side project that day and it was as bad as you can get. And they were skiing in a known serious avalanche hazard zone. Just showing off to out of town bigwigs IMHO. Someone died at Alpental (in the backcountry area), one pass over, that day as well when a slide pushed him off of a cliff.
Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wa…
What is the book?