The New York Times has weighed in mightily on last February’s fatal Tunnel Creek avalanche, which took three lives near Washington’s Stevens Pass ski resort. Over six months, a handful of writers and graphic designers and web gurus assembled text, videos, maps, slide shows and sound files. The result is a gorgeous package, by turns harrowing and suspenseful and as engrossing as a good movie. Characters are revealed, mysteries are limned, tragedy is evoked.
Some have critiqued the multimedia extravaganza as redundant, since Outside magazine published a pretty thorough account of the disaster—written by one of the survivors—just a month ago. (I’m not sure how this is redundant, any more than when two newspapers assign reporters to cover a campaign or a war. My sense is that two independent publications decided to write stories about the same event, which happens all the time.) Our own Runestone contrasted the “celebrity” catastrophe to the wonder of stumbling across the majestic aftermath of an avalanche that took place unobserved on a remote Montana highway.
Still, the Times piece is astonishing, a terrific demonstration of how the web can bring a human event to life in an entirely new way. It will inform you and touch you and, perversely, make you wonder how it would be to try a little backcountry skiing at your advanced age. It’s worth your attention, but expect to spend some time going through it. (And do it over your computer, if possible. My iPad captured most but not all of the graphic elements.)
Photo: National Park Service avalanche photo (not Tunnel Creek) via Wikimedia Commons.
