Hood Climbers vs Crystal Snowboarders

[Blake]

Last December three climbers died on Mt. Hood. As the search was going on for them, we all remember how much media/public attention it got.

 

This December three snowboarders have apparently died on Crystal Mountain. Their search and disappearance generated a tiny fraction of the attention.

 

Do you think the huge difference is just because the "Mt.Hood" is more famous/exciting than "Crystal Mtn Ski Area" and because "climbers" is more attention-grabbing than "boarders"?

 

If not, what caused such vastly different reactions by the public and media?

[pink]

good question?

[minx]

i was thinking about this the other day. the climbers on hood were from all over the country. thus the national news got involved. these were local guys thus a local story. snowboarding doesn't sound as exciting to the media as climbing a volcano.

[pink]

i think minx is right..... as hard is that is for me to admit the silly little girly moderator is right... now back to being an asshole.

[sobo]

Oh at last! A Mt. Hood Climbers vs. Crystal Mountain Snowboarders Speculation Thread!

 

But Blake raises a good question. Minx provides a logical answer.

[Rad]

Other factors:

 

Hood is close to a major metro area with quick access for the local fleet of media helicopters. The mtn is an iconic image that many americans know.

 

Neither is true for Crystal.

[ivan]

remember, the news had gotten very primed for such wilderness survival stories b/c there'd been that big oregon story a week earlier about the dude who tried walking out for help, leaving his family behind (kim? was it?)

[chucK]

I think it's got more to do with the "condescension" factor.

 

People get to feel better about themselves when they can say, "what total fucking morons! I would never do that." Climbing a mountain is crazy stupid to begin with, then doing it in the winter, etc. etc.

 

Add the righteous indignation of "our taxdollars being spent, blah blah blah" and you've got the genesis of a big story.

 

Once it gets really rolling, there's the potential for the digging reporters to find poignant details like a dying guy calling home to his family, unreachable, doomed, dramatic.

 

Lots of people snowboard and ski and stuff (especially in the winter). It's not as dramatic and there's no assumption of these people brought it on themselves and now it's costing me money.

 

 

[texplorer]

Snowboarding is neither

[chucK]

Ivan's guy gets his family trapped on snowy mountain road, is a perenial favorite too. It's got drama, and again, there's that condenscension factor. No sustained headlines when a family of four is killed in a headon, but if someone dies because of a bunch of screw-ups that "I wouldn't do", it gets sustained appeal due to the outrage.

[pink]

does the media know what we want or do we demand it and get what we want?

[Bug]

We demand media hype.

How else do you explain actors being amoung the ultra-rich? Athletes too.

It's about escaping our (rhetorically speaking) own boring existance.

 

[denalidave]

We demand media hype.

 

It's about escaping our (rhetorically speaking) own boring existance.

Isn't that why a lot of us climb, or at least partly so? Is for me anyway.

[Bug]

You need to get married and divorced twice.

[pink]

what came first?

[Bug]

Actually, climbing to escape vs climbing for the fun of it are different philosophically.

If you love your life even if you do not climb, but chose to climb anyway, what are you escaping? "Nothing" is my view. I do not need to escape. I just love to climb.

[Bug]

what came first?

THE PREGANANCY.

[sobo]

Ba-dum, ching!

[sexual_chocolate]

Last December three climbers died on Mt. Hood. As the search was going on for them, we all remember how much media/public attention it got.

 

This December three snowboarders have apparently died on Crystal Mountain. Their search and disappearance generated a tiny fraction of the attention.

 

Do you think the huge difference is just because the "Mt.Hood" is more famous/exciting than "Crystal Mtn Ski Area" and because "climbers" is more attention-grabbing than "boarders"?

 

If not, what caused such vastly different reactions by the public and media?

 

Hood had huge inherent drama cuz the peeps were confirmed to be alive. Contact was established, then dropped, so everyone knew someone was alive, so it became a race against time. Perfect headline grabber. And the drama continued for over a week, with horrendous weather conditions etc. Epic movie material.

[Bug]

Hood had huge inherent drama cuz the peeps were confirmed to be alive. Contact was established, then dropped, so everyone knew someone was alive, so it became a race against time. Perfect headline grabber. And the drama continued for over a week, with horrendous weather conditions etc. Epic movie material.

 

Good points. The movie has already been made starring David Niven who dies in the rescue attempt.

[pink]

MEDIA

 

one word answers please

[sobo]

merde

[pink]

porn

[Bug]

message

[jclements]

 

Hood had huge inherent drama cuz the peeps were confirmed to be alive. Contact was established, then dropped, so everyone knew someone was alive, so it became a race against time. Perfect headline grabber. And the drama continued for over a week, with horrendous weather conditions etc. Epic movie material.

 

Word. Trapped coal miners, trapped kids in wells... This goes back to that Floyd Collins dude in the cave, big media attention, only if it weren't for those people in Nome needing diptheria vaccine, he'd a blown up even bigger on CNN.

 

So here's a little device needing to be invented... rather than having a trusted person at home call rescue services, you get a special cell phone with a timer that calls out at some time when you should be back, leave it somewhere close to a tower near your excursion area. It calls 911 with your prerecorded voice that says, "Help, we're in trouble out here in X, and my cell phone is about to-" bam, clock is ticking on people in trouble in the backcountry, thereby doubling or tripling the rescue efforts.

 

But where's the fun in that, really? Those Crystal snowboarders - maybe they coulda called out, but decided that ain't how they roll. In the movie, dude (played by Mark Wahlberg) opens his cell phone, looks at his best buddy from high school buried alongside him in the debris, insert shot of several bars on cell phone screen, and then his buddy nods, and Marky Mark clicks the cell phone shut.