Snowfall: The avalanche at tunnel creek

Introduction:
The New York Times astonishing Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, launched
in the final days of 2012, capped a year of extraordinary work in interactive journalism,
both at the Times and in newsrooms around the world. In the six days after Snow Falls
launch on December 20th, 2012, it had received more than 3.5 million page views and
2.9 million visitors, nearly a third of whom were new visitors to the Times website. Its
an exemplary piece of multimedia journalism, and its many moving (and swooping and
clicking) pieces have attracted intense attention from media commentators, but Snow Fall
began life not as a demonstration of technology and design capabilities, but with a
traditional, in-depth piece by Times reporter John Branch. Every accident can be traced
back to human error (Hess, 2012). This is especially true for outdoor pursuits. Even in
instances where an act of nature occurred, the source of error can likely be traced back
to a human decision (Hess, 2012). By thoroughly documenting, analyzing and learning
from accidents, the dangers of future wilderness pursuits can be greatly mitigated. In
2011 alone, there were 156 mountaineering accidents recorded in the United States
(Williamson, 2012). Careful analysis of each of these accidents holds the potential to
save lives. In recent decades, easy access to the winter backcountry is unprecedented.
Machines, such as helicopters and snowmobiles, allow us to travel quickly across terrain,
high into the mountains. These new technologies allow us to more efficiently climb and
ski formerly arduous mountains with minimal effort. Advertisements tell skiers and
snowboarders to seek fresh tracks outside the boundaries of the ski area. Avalanche
education courses are regularly offered throughout the winter months and increasingly
safety equipment gives users a false sense of security. The sport of skiing has reached a
level where professionals are going farther, faster, and bigger (Hansen, 2012) leaving
little margin for error. All too commonly experts fall victim to their own error. On
February 19th, 2012 a group of sixteen skiers and snowboarders left the boundary gates
of Stevens Pass Ski Area and headed for a ski run called Tunnel Creek. That day three
expert skiers were killed in an avalanche: Jim Jack, Chris Rudolph, and Johnny Brenan.
Their deaths attracted extensive publicity to the incident and tragically impacted the ski
community. When honoring the lives of these three men, it is important to analyze the
circumstances that ultimately cost them their lives, in hope to prevent this from
happening to other people. In their defense, these individuals were neither reckless nor
negligent in their actions that day and the situation they ended up in happens commonly.
Having personally been in similar circumstances while backcountry skiing, in which
family and friends are risking their lives, I can recognize a few simple decisions can
increase risk exponentially. Goal setting has been proven to increase the amount of effort
an individual will put in to reach a goal (Early, Connoly, & Ekegren, 1989). In many
situations, goals help the individual strive for higher levels of achievement and self-
betterment. However, there comes a point when goal setting no longer is productive,
when its narrow a goal can limit learning (Kayes, 2006). In a dynamic environment this
combination of effort and limitation can prove fatal. Similar patterns of goal setting
played a role in the events leading up to the Tunnel Creek avalanche of 2012.
Description:
The integration of multimedia in Snow Fall was purposeful. As New York Times
Graphics Director Steve Duenes explained in an interview with Poynter Online, they
were looking to find ways to create a seamless experience, So it didnt feel like you
were taking a detour, but the multimedia was part of the one narrative flow.
Beyond the multimedia integration, there were various technical and design components
brought into play:
There are silent videos that automatically play; some of them providing a
graphical backdrop, others as informative graphics.
There is a scrolling mechanism (called jquery.inview) which will trigger actions
as the user scrolls. For example, it will play a video, graphic animation or change
some CSS properties like fading the background.
A curtain effect that reveals or covers images and videos as the user scrolls.
While some of these are simple design embellishments, their power lies in the emotional
response they trigger as you venture through the story, and I use venture intentionally,
because this is the feeling that it evokes. Effective design triggers an emotional response
which can enhance the story structure.
Video Animations
From the opening video animation; which could have just been a static image; the viewer
is taken to a barren and ominous place. Using silent videos instead of still images is a
much more effective way of conveying this sense of place.
In Snow Fall, the opening animated images set the mood of the project in a similar style
to background music setting the mood of a movie. It creates an atmosphere from the very
moment the project opens. Its important that these videos are silent and repetitive. They
arent narratives; they arent meant to be watched or played in the same style as a stand-
alone video. Also, auto-playing audio on websites is considered poor design practice and
annoying to users.
Scrolling
This creates suspense going from photo to photo, unveiling more and more of the
narrative as the reader scrolls to explore this world. In more traditional journalism
environments, this might have been a slideshow, which I think would have completely
ruined the experience.
Scrolling also allows people to get a glimpse of what to expect from the package by
quickly going down the page and scanning the content. Web usability studies show that
users like to skim content, especially when presented with a large quantity of it. Weve
noticed that our journalism students similarly tend to scan through a piece before pausing
to read or watch it.

Curtain
Another mechanism used in the Snow Fall piece was the curtain effect, which creates the
sense of revealing or concealing panels of content as the user scrolls. The curtain effect
serves a few different purposes. Initially, its refers to as eye candy, a design
embellishment that wows the user, and draws them into the story. However, this effect is
ephemeral and will lose its impact as more and more people use it and it becomes more
commonplace. The curtain effect also makes the process of scrolling more playful and
adds a sense of mystery as the story unfolds as the curtain rises.
Analysis:
There are two incredible things about John Branchs multimedia feature in the New
York Times, Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek. First, the story itself, as
in February, a group of skiing experts; the group consisted of a professional skier,
people who work in the skiing industry and people who run ski resorts, decided to
ski Tunnel Creek. Cowboy Mountain; part of the Cascade Range in Washington;
has a front and back side. The front is home to Stevens Pass, where there is a resort
and people looking for a winter getaway. The back is Tunnel Creek, where there is
nothing but trees and soft powder and daring souls whizzing down the slope. There
are continue at your own risk signs, as the Creek is unmonitored and, while not
private land, technically out of the resorts boundaries.
I suppose theres a safe way to ski Tunnel Creek; they say stay left at all costs
and dont plunge too far straight down, otherwise you will find yourself in a
terrain trap, essentially a valley that is littered with rocks and trees and acts as a
landing strip for avalanches. The slightest shift in snowpack can trigger one, and if
youre caught in the terrain trap, well, odds of survival are not good. Out of the
group Branch chronicles in his story, some chose the vertical route. What unfolded
was pure terror. Its an unbelievable story that Branch, an ace reporter and writer,
tells brilliantly.
The second incredible thing is the presentation of the story and what the Times
staff did with it. If youre curious what multimedia storytelling looks like at its
best, this is it: Compelling story, superb writing, beautiful graphics, stunning
design, 3-D interactive features that are simple to understand and awesome to look
at, video interviews embedded into the piece, audio, slideshows that add depth to
the characters and enrich your personal connection with this piece. Its hard to even
compare this piece to other written works, because we experience Snow Fall
through every medium possible. Words, images, sounds interactive features. We
get it all. The story is long, but even if you dont read it all, you should certainly
skim through just to see the design and enjoy the multimedia benefits.
The question is which the graphics and interactive features actually added to the
reading experience or not. In my opinion too often, cool-looking graphics become
clunky on the page with sub-optimal design, and although they still add some
element of experience, they detract from the work overall. They become a
distraction, they are frustrating, and they are barriers for reading on. Snow Fall
got that piece of this just right. As a reader, you get to a graphic and wanted to
engage it, because, in a simple manner, it helps you understand and visualize
events that are unfolding in the text, and then the graphic seamlessly pushes you
back out on the other side, back into the text. You never feel like you really left the
story. The text and graphics worked in harmony. It seems like the beginning of a
winning strategy would include providing spectacular digital content that can
overcome the limitations of paper and ink and be teased with a news story in the
print product.



Conclusion
All of these components together create a more immersive experience for the
viewer, like that found in traditional media like documentaries or long-form
narratives. In a digital world, creating this experience needs to include design
conventions and leveraging new technological innovations to engage readers. All
of this is experimental, but my hope is journalists will analyze and build on
projects like Snow Fall so we can more effectively deliver news and other content
to the public.









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