The Legacy of Tunnel Creek and Skiing's Complicated History Grappling With Death

In December 2012, POWDER magazine released the fourth issue of its forty-first volume, marking the first full season of publication for the eminent title since the devastating, paradigm-shifting avalanche at Tunnel Creek, Washington, an event that fundamentally changed skiing.

The accident just outside the boundary of Steven’s Pass ski area was sweeping in its scope. Sixteen individuals from disparate backgrounds—professional skiers, ski media luminaries, freeride comp pioneers, and local skiers—were involved. The tragedy would take three lives, and quickly reverberated through the ski world. Tunnel Creek was so impactful, its influence so wide-reaching, that it not only shifted the discussion on safety and mortality in the modern backcountry skiing movement, but its coverage by John Branch of The New York Times in a sweeping multimedia piece would win a Pulitzer Prize. The accident and the media surrounding it together marked an inflection point for the skiing culture.

And in that issue of POWDER (known as ‘the black cover’), editor and writer Matt Hansen would contribute his own sprawling exploration of skiing’s then seemingly all-too-close relationship with death in “Nature’s Feedback: Why Are So Many of the Best Skiers Dying?”POWDER had found itself not only covering the accident at Tunnel Creek; fellow editor John Stifter was a member of the party involved in the avalanche. The publication that had long touted itself as the core skier’s magazine had come to a crossroads after Tunnel Creek and a wider rash of deaths in skiing, and looked within.

“Even before last winter, the ski industry had been quietly grappling with a troubling trend: Too many of its best athletes were getting killed. Memorials and remembrances were becoming all too frequent,” Hansen wrote. “Every fall, magazines like this one roll out yet another tribute to another dead skier—the editors trying to balance paying respect to a hero and a friend while celebrating the search for deep powder, big air, and the next phenomenal athlete willing to go bigger, faster, farther than the last guy.”

From the loss of freeride innovators Jamie Pierre and Sarah Burke, who both passed away just months before Tunnel Creek, to the rise of the modern but often more risky forms skiing was taking in the backcountry, Hanson dissected not only the break-neck progression in all avenues of skiing—including a revolution in backcountry equipment and the seemingly limitless progression in park and air—he wondered how the skiing culture at large, including POWDER, had perhaps contributed to what seemed like a brinkmanship affecting skiing writ large. 

“Throw in the fact that resorts, ski brands, and media—including this magazine—actively promote the cool factor of skiing beyond the ropes, plus the influence of social media—the constant game of over-sharing, self-promotion, and one-upmanship—and it seems that if you’re not out there killing it every day, you risk being left behind,” Hansen wrote. 

The spate of deaths, perhaps not least of all the accident at Tunnel Creek, and the subsequent reflection by the media of what may have contributed to them together marked a seminal moment for skiing. Articles like Hansen’s and Branch’s were rare and poignant contemplations in a ski world often prone to escapism, and looked at the mosaic of factors— from approaches to avalanche safety to the rising impact of social media and the role sponsors played—and broadly wondered how the ski revolution, complete with modern gear, skiing, and ethos, had come to such a juncture.

But POWDER’s attempt to inject ski culture with a perhaps needed dose of metacognition reflected the still complicated endeavor of discussing death in skiing. Some readers were taken aback by Hansen’s article, expecting stoke and perhaps lighter fare from the core title, long known for celebrating the skiing lifestyle. Regardless, that year marked a sea change in ski media, forever altering how publications would approach weightier subject matter; topics that were then, and remain, divisive in skiing.

“It was a really important story about a lot of the tragedies of the most well-known professional skiers of that time,” prominent outdoor writer and long-time POWDER contributor Megan Michelson, who was present at the Tunnel Creek avalanche, remembers of “Nature’s Feedback.” “But it was a real downer, and so readers were angry about it. They get their POWDER magazine because they want to read about fun trips and cool people and new gear. They don't want to read about ‘skiing is killing everybody.’”

POWDER’s ‘black cover’ would mark an early step in what would be a transformation at the magazine. And the complicated response to that issue would mirror the complicated topics at hand. “I think the response was pretty mixed,” John Stifter, former editor-in-chief at POWDER, now a licensed physiotherapist, who was invited to ski Tunnel Creek that day in 2012 with photographer Keith Carlsen while working on a piece on night skiing, says. “I think some people wanted us to continue to kind of be chicken soup for the skier soul and not get into kind of more political stuff, especially climate change. And then other folks were like ‘right on,’ you know, like ‘way to be honest and way to point the mirror back at yourselves and realize your role in this.’”

Writer Matt Hansen recalls the article as being surprising for readers, but along different lines. "I can’t speak for readers obviously, and if I remember correctly, I think it kind of shocked people, and we put it right on the cover,” he says. “I think people appreciated the fact we were taking on these hard topics instead of just writing fluff all the time.”

Speaking over the telephone from Jackson, Wyoming, by way of a Steamboat Springs cell phone number, Hansen, who was a writer and editor at POWDER for over fourteen years, reflected on what was a pivotal time in skiing and at POWDER. “We had come through and were seeing a troubling trend in skiing. We were celebrating all of these amazing achievements and the pursuit of life in the mountains, which is super worthy, and yet we were being hit–it seemed quite frequently–by a lot of skiers not coming home and dying in the mountains,” Hansen noted in the call. "And we were trying to grapple with this on the edit staff. How can we continue to celebrate skiing without recognizing the very real dangers and the very real and tragic consequences that sometimes come with it?”

Ski media was then grappling with giving their reader base what would drive them to subscribe and read, versus a cycle of hard news that many publications felt was their responsibility to report. And skiing had then endured a rash of tragedy.Beyond professional skiers like Burke and Pierre, and in addition to the seismic impact of Tunnel Creek, multitudes of local heroes and luminaries had also recently died skiing, including skiers like Steve Romeo, a long-time Jackson, Wyoming local and creator of the seminal backcountry skiing blog TetonAT, who himself and his skiing partner Chris Onufer passed away in an avalanche just weeks after Tunnel Creek. As the modern skiing experience coalesced along technologically ascendant lines, where equipment, films, and social media had together reached a tipping point of progression, something seemed amiss as many notable skiers were losing their lives. Part of the challenge for ski media was to present the topic to an often escapist skiing world.

“That's an age-old dilemma for journalists, but especially ski journalists,” Michelson says, before detailing the importance and nuance of reporting and consuming deeper topics in skiing. “If we don't talk about the hard stuff, whether it's climate change or affordable housing or politics, then obviously we're not fully participating as responsible humans in this activity because skiing is fun and it's an escape, but it's also part of this much bigger ecosystem,” she notes.

That ecosystem includes a skiing world where those difficult topics often struggle to find purchase, and where the discussion is often met with negative reaction. Hansen noted in “Nature’s Feedback” that the late Robb Gaffney, a prominent skier and filmmaker in 1990s Tahoe who later became a psychiatrist, was interviewed for an NBC segment in early 2012 that reported on the spate of deaths occurring in skiing. Gaffney noted that the death of Shane McConkey—a trailblazing skier who died in a ski BASE/wingsuit accident in 2009—was perhaps not unrelated to the pressure he felt to push the envelope for his sponsors. 

Hansen noted how an anonymous user vehemently disagreed with Gaffney (and perhaps NBC’s characterization of Gaffney’s points) in a comment posted on the topic on Steve Romeo’s TetonAT. The user hurled a pejorative at Gaffney before continuing: “I remember him growing up and have now lost respect for him,” the user wrote of Gaffney. “A bunch of awesome people have been dying and trying for a very long time; skiers, climbers, boaters, surfers, soldiers, etc… What has changed is the widespread publicity and shear (sic) numbers willing to try. The line in the sand is most of this (sic) people would have done their passions despite the camera and glory. Personal enjoyment, progression and responsibility can’t really be measured at the f-ing news desk!”

HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, the venerable sports television newsmagazine, itself covered backcountry skiing and the rise in accidents in April of 2012, with correspondent Jon Frankel interviewing Tanner Hall, Chris Davenport, J.T. Holmes, and Elyse Saugstad, who had just months earlier survived the Tunnel Creek avalanche. While the segment was informative, it was also produced for wider consumption outside of the skiing nucleus. The prominent display of Tanner Hall and his ski-bro persona seemed to be used as a vehicle for novelty for a general public unlearned in ski slang and vibe. Frankel also described backcountry skiing in somewhat sensationalist terms, saying in a monologue that “for Hall, and a lot of diehard skiers these days, the ultimate test isn’t at a ski resort or in a halfpipe, it’s here, in what’s called the backcountry; the steepest, most daunting mountains on earth.”

While Real Sports’ coverage of backcountry skiing was notable, some felt its tone and analysis leaned heavily into characterizing professional skiing as perhaps reckless without grounding the discussion in the reality of what backcountry skiing entails for most, leading skiers, and ski media outlets, to criticize their coverage. In reaction, SKI, perhaps the most mainline ski magazine, noted in a review of the episode that “Last night, HBO’s look at backcountry skiing on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel lived up to our predicted expectations by grossly sensationalizing backcountry skiers as reckless, Red Bull-fueled adrenaline freaks with a death wish.” 

McConkey’s death, which was referenced in the Real Sports segment and preceded Tunnel Creek by several years, was part of the rash of losses then occurring in skiing, and similarly, if in perhaps less directly relatable ways, brought to the fold questions of limits and safety in skiing. But the wider discourse on McConkey’s death coalesced along different lines than Tunnel Creek would, reflecting a ski culture’s typical coming to terms with fallen heroes.

Matchstick Productions, the core skiing movie house that McConkey was long affiliated with, subsequently produced a documentary released in 2013 that was distributed by Red Bull Media, the energy drink-turned extreme icon arbiter who was perhaps McConkey’s most notable sponsor. Hero worship was deserved for the skier who not only pushed the limit in extreme skiing but also played a significant role in the modern ski equipment paradigm. But while accolades were deserved, a deeper treatise on the topic—outside of articles like Hansen’s—is often little discussed in such instances, especially in a branded ode to the departed. 

In differing ways, media from the likes of POWDER and Matchstick Productions marked a response from the skiing nucleus; a perhaps more introspective reflection from the subculture itself on what was then occurring. While the spate of deaths received additional, at times illuminating coverage from media like NBC and HBO’s Real Sports, the mainstream media’s treatment of core ski culture is often taken up when that news is provocative, and many in skiing recoil at such coverage, feeling it rarely includes requisite nuance.

But the continued loss of skiers and subsequent introspection that occurred changed the discourse in skiing in a way only a careful, expert analysis could. “We felt like it was time to address it,” Hansen says. “And we weren’t the only ones at the time. The ski community was starting to sit up and be like ‘okay, well all of this progression we’re seeing, all of these amazing things, there's a very real consequence to it if you make a mistake or if you have a tiny misread of the conditions.’”

And perhaps the most thorough discussion of danger and death in modern skiing—especially in the backcountry—ironically came from the mainstream media in John Branch’s seminal, Pulitzer Prize and Peabody award-winning New York Times multimedia article “Snow Fall,” which was released contemporaneously with Hansen’s piece featured in POWDER. 

Speaking to the paradigm shift then occurring in skiing and ski marketing, Branch poignantly touched on the broad mechanisms present in the culture’s relationship with danger, echoing Matt Hansen of POWDER when he noted that “marketing shifts have coincided with a generation raised on the glorification of risk. From X Games to YouTube videos, helmet cameras to social media, the culture rewards vicarious thrills and video one-upmanship. This generation no longer automatically adheres to the axiom of waiting a day for safer conditions. The relative placidness of inbounds skiing is no match for the greater adventure of untamed terrain.”

But aside from astutely detailing snow science, the rise of back- and sidecountry skiing (and the problematic nature of the latter term), and his brilliant treatment of the role decision making plays in any group taking to a dangerous endeavor, “Snow Fall” was notable for its intimate portrayal of the individuals who were impacted, interviewing those involved in the rescue effort and loved ones who lost partners in the accident, giving the discussion on paying the ultimate price skiing unique nuance. Branch’s inclusion of desperate 911 dispatch recordings, texts from loved ones checking in after hearing of the slide, and candid video interviews by gutted partners added complex hues to the discourse on risk and death in skiing, perhaps never quite captured before, or since. It marked an intimate, difficult reality seldom encountered in ski media. Something POWDER would continue to lean into in the coming years.

Branch had accomplished not only a seminal article touching on human nature, decision making, and why people take to seemingly trivial, dangerous, yet deeply meaningful pursuits—an almost Homeric approach to skiing akin to works on climbing—his piece stands as amongst the modern ski movement’s most metacognitive literature, not least of all in regards to loss and death.

Still, the scope of covering serious topics in skiing remains a fraught endeavor. Readers often expect more aspirational stories from ski media, and perhaps they should consider the sport’s foundation in fun and escapism. And, through social media, readers now have more ability than ever to circulate snippets showcasing that perspective, while the platform also grants an ability to criticize how a publication might take to weightier issues, especially considering the devolved political discourse.

Still, skiing is unavoidably impacted by broader topics like mortality.

“I do think it's super important that we have people…who are covering these hard topics,” writer Megan Michelson says before noting the challenges of chasing these stories. “There’s less people doing that nowadays because it's harder to make a living doing it. So I think you have to dance the fine line through. Maybe for every five stories you write about something hard, you also pick a fun piece just so that you remember why you got into this in the first place. And because readers need that break.”

Further elaborating on the shift in content that occurred at POWDER, and the consensus for moving that direction, former editor John Stifter notes that “when I became editor [just two months after Tunnel Creek], it was pretty obvious we couldn't continue to ignore our culpability in that as POWDER. We're publishing these photos; we're celebrating these trends of people getting out there, and so it was just a real, personally for me, it was a real pause and reevaluation.”

Moreover, former POWDER editor Mike Rogge, whose tenure at the magazine coincided with both Hansen’s and Stifter’s, asserts that the magazine shifted its stance markedly after the accident at Tunnel Creek, and that the title’s focus on safety presaged a pivot to a broader, perhaps more thoughtful approach that, in his mind eventually doomed the magazine in its previous iteration.

“The Steven’s Pass avalanche is kind of what really changed everything at POWDER,” Rogge told Mike Powell on The Powell Movement podcast in December of 2021. 

“I think, unfortunately, we went too far in the direction of safety, we got a little preachy, and I think ultimately the downfall of the magazine was that we had decided pretty clearly that we wanted to focus more on big issues affecting skiing,” Rogge said on the podcast. “And not on the reason why we all got into it, which is the love, and the joy, and the hilarity, and the absurdity of what it means to be a skier. And that was what made POWDER what it was, not making it The New Yorker or The Atlantic of skiing. That was our downfall.”

Stifter disagrees with characterizing that period as a downfall, though he agrees with Rogge generally.  “In my twelve years at the magazine, we went through four buyouts. So, I don't really think it's too much to do with specific coverage,” Stifter says. “I do think that people may have started to roll their eyes a bit at some of our coverage and just thought, ‘hey, like look, you guys are a ski magazine at the end of the day. You're not investigative journalists. Stick to skiing more.’”

“I think where he's totally right is I think the business model led to the downfall. But that's not to say that coverage didn’t have an impact on that. I mean it was definitely a different magazine than what you picked up in 2006. I would say that.”

While Rogge’s own Mountain Gazette occasionally delves into larger topics, it also focuses heavily on story-telling, while the mainstream skiing discourse continues toward a social media and gear listicle-leaning nature (though audience-facing models seem to be gaining traction there), perhaps showcasing that while articles like Hansen’s and Branch’s changed the narrative around mortality in skiing, it could only go so far in a ski world whose very essence is perhaps a counterpoint to metacognition. 

In a line from “Nature’s Feedback,” one that used a refrain the late Steve Romeo long used, Matt Hansen cognated on threading the needle between skiing’s experiential side and the occasional need for deeper reflection:

“With so many fatalities and near misses, some people are starting to think skiers need to change their approach, maybe take a step back from the edge,” Hansen wrote. “Romeo’s mantra, which he often quoted on TetonAT, was ‘Live to Ski.’ But in a time that’s seen so much tragedy, maybe it’s time to live to ski…another day.”

Today, the discussion on safety in skiing is integral to the discourse.  And ski media’s response to events like the accident at Tunnel Creek has had a lasting impact on its inclusion. Avalanche centers and classes have made articles like the POWDER multimedia piece “The Human Factor,” a broad exploration of safety in skiing, required reading. Even heavier nonskiing topics like mental health have become mainstays in the ski media narrative. 

But while the sport has always been quick to eulogize those lost skiing, a deeper reflection on mortality is still often missing. Mirroring the broader culture’s typical approach to the topic, skiing continues to hold death at arm’s length, often retreating to the comfort of hero worship and fond memory over analysis and reflection when in its shadow. 

But writers like Matt Hansen poignantly note that those seemingly opposing discussions in skiing are not mutually exclusive. Speaking of the late Robb Gaffney, who similarly picked up the mantle of reflecting on what was then happening in skiing around 2012, Hansen notes that Gaffney “was saying just because we are having these conversations doesn't mean that we can’t celebrate our heroes and it doesn’t mean that we can’t love them as much as we’ve always loved them, but let’s try to be honest about how people die in the mountains so that the rest of us can learn and so that we can pass those lessons on to other skiers so that we don’t go through this heartbreak of losing loved ones and friends.”

And though the current paradigm in ski media is little poised for diving deeply into thoughtful topics with its heavy lean on social media, gear, and experience, Tunnel Creek and the response to it forever affected skiing. “Our coverage totally changed from not only more responsible coverage of just avalanches, and also the decision-making, terrain, and all of that. But also looking at climate change and its impacts on mountain communities and what that looks like for the future,” Stifter says.

Still, it is perhaps only natural that the ski culture is often averse to discussing death and broader topics. Skiing is rooted in the moment and enjoying it. But while the sport and its lifestyle are based on that whimsical nature, a counterpoint of seriousness does lie at the terminal end of the experience. And, to many, avoiding those topics leaves the discourse incomplete.

Tunnel Creek may mark the seminal moment in modern skiing. It was but one in a slew of accidents then occurring in skiing, but was enormous in scope—both in how large and varied the group involved was—but also in how relatable the event continues to be. Many skiers, then and now, take to skiing like that group did. And the resulting metacognition and dissection of risk—and the reaction to it from the core skiing culture—has impacted not only how avalanches and safety are broadly discussed; it also showcased the complicated nature skiing publications face when diving into deeper subjects, and the complicated way the subculture’s readership reacts to those topics. With the success of many larger ski publications being tied to an internet-facing platform and its metrics, these articles, long-form and analytical, may find less avenue for discussion as time goes by. 

But regardless of that, thoughtful writers like Matt Hansen and John Branch changed the narrative in skiing. No matter how quietly that legacy lives on, no matter how complicated its readership takes to those topics, it has indelibly influenced the skiing subculture.

“I get asked about that piece still,” Hansen says, nearly fourteen years on.

About The Brave New World of Skiing Column

This article was written by POWDER writer Jack O’Brien for his bi-weekly ‘Brave New World of Skiing’ column. Click below to read the previous column, ‘Your Favorite Outdoor Brand is Probably Struggling Right Now'.