Photo: Alex Lee
Find time to read Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, a New York Times classic. Published in 2012, the piece still shines and makes us know how fragile it all is.
Every few years, I revisit a journalistic and interactive multimedia masterpiece, Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, by John Branch. Branch, a sports writer for the NYT, has come to trade access to relatively high-profile outdoor athletes for what is a boon for readers; great prose and great insight. Published in 2012, more than a decade on, the piece resonates on many levels. Three individuals lost their lives in the well-documented accident.At the time, I recall the accident created waves due to its scale; there were 16 members in the party, and some of them were well-recognized names. I also recall being blown away by the multimedia presentation—it altered my perception of how one could present a story with the proper resources. But other notable things caught my attention too.
Sidecountry: A Term Deserving of Cancellation
As a culture, we have inched along, making progress. Sidecountry, at least in my circles, is a dust-bin term. Tunnel Creek, for example, is accessed via a chairlift and hike from Stevens Pass Ski Area atop Cowboy Mountain. With just an ounce of moxy, you transition from a relatively manicured industrial ski zone to real deal craggy, raw, unmitigated backcountry.
Here’s what Branch wrote in 2012. “Those who drop away from the ski area, toward Tunnel Creek, are simply following a much wider trend into “sidecountry” — backcountry slopes easily entered by lifts and, sometimes, a short hike.
“I don’t like the term ‘sidecountry,'” Moore, the avalanche forecaster, said. “It makes it sound like ‘backcountry light.'”
If you hear the word sidecountry or find yourself in the “sidecountry,” know it is a fallacy. Clear from Branch’s story and clear from many close-to-ski-area-boundary avalanche fatalities, sidecountry isn’t. It is backcountry.
I was reminded of this in a past life when asked to write a story on the “best sidecountry access,” from select chairlift-served mountains. I explained that “sidecountry” wasn’t a term in use anymore, and I could sense the puzzlement on the other end of the line. But, as I said, I don’t use that term or treat any terrain outside an area’s boundary as such. Read “Snow Fall” if you need to get on board with that.
Group
Scan across the top menu bar of “Snow Fall’s” multimedia presentation, and The Group resides far to the right. Click The Group and a sixteen-portrait composite of the ski party displays. Eerily, you can make direct eye contact with each person, which, at least for me, adds a level of intimacy and sadness to the story Branch lays out. These are human beings with friends, loved ones, partners, and possibly children.
Branch does discuss in detail the degrees of separation between those in the group and the somewhat casual way the group coalesced to ride a lift and work towards Tunnel Creek. In today’s hair-trigger world, I want to be clear: this is not a judgment on the individuals involved. I’m grateful the story was told as it remains a prime educational resource.
I will comment briefly on group size. No matter how experienced the group or how benign the terrain, groups are tough to manage in the backcountry. I usually tour with one or two other partners. And occasionally, in the spring, I join larger groups of friends. This past winter, I took my first guided hut trip. I think there were nine clients total and two guides, and we rarely (except on two occasions) descended as one large group. Rob Coppolillo and Nino Guagliano, the guides, worked magic as we traveled in and around what many considered to be a generationally weak snowpack. I could barely imagine shepherding clients in that terrain as the stress would be inexorably taxing and career-shortening for me.
Know your group. And be open to new members of the group. But keep the group manageable in size and temperament when it comes to open dialogue and risk assessment/tolerance.
The Airbag
Of the sixteen group members, one skier, Elyse Saugstad, wore an airbag pack. In 2012, an era of even heavier and early iteration airbag packs, that ratio of wearers to non-wearers was not uncommon. Still today, it is a rare day in most regions of North America to see many skiers wearing canister or electronic airbags. In the case of Saugstad, who was swept downhill, she pulled the trigger and credits the deployed airbag from keeping her face above the surface. She was mostly buried aside from her arms and face. Of the skiers who took the long slide within the roiling snow, Saugstad was the only survivor.
(I don’t know Saugstad. And honestly, I didn’t follow her career as a professional skier. But I do know she’s a relatively new mom. That’s a happy outcome.)
Much has been said and written about the pros and cons of airbag packs. Some of the discourse is positive, while some are steadfastly derisive. I think most can agree, as Saugstad told National Geographic after the incident, “It must be noted though that an ABS backpack is for when everything goes wrong, rather than being an enabler to ditch common sense and forego avalanche safety.”
Over the years, I have heard the oft-claimed reason for not wearing an airbag pack; some feel they may expose themselves to more risk since the perception is the airbag pack affords them a greater likelihood of safe passage in the event of an avalanche. (The risk compensation argument.) Some argue the bags are way too expensive. The new class of electronic bags push into the $1200 realm and beyond. Older canister systems can be had for ~$500 and up.
And something we hear often and can relate to, airbag packs are heavier. There’s a general reluctance to adopt heavier gear in a sport where huge strides have been made to decrease gear weight.
To further explore some of the airbag data, Bruce Temper’s post on the Utah Avalanche Center’s blog is a good place to start. Temper writes, “My best guess is that avalanche airbag packs will probably save a little more than half of those who would have otherwise have died in an avalanche. They will never save all of them because 1 out of 4 will likely die from trauma of hitting trees and rocks on the way down and an additional 1 out of 4 will probably end up in a terrain trap (deep burial), buried by a secondary avalanche or caught in an avalanche that does not travel far enough for the inverse segregation process to work (larger objects rise to the surface).”
I’ve likely read “Snow Fall” something like eight times since 2012, most recently when I jotted down these thoughts, and before that, last year when I read Branch’s collection of non-fiction titled, Sidecountry. That book is a recommended read. But so too, one more time, is the evergreen “Snow Fall,” and the sober look at a powder day gone bad.
