The Boulder Mountain avalanche: on-site aftermath photos

By David F. Rooney

There’s an old tradition in journalism of forming a pool when access to a disaster or event is extremely limited. It’s usually just a few people who are trusted by their peers to write a story about what they see and take pictures and/or video that can be used by all news outlets covering a particular situation.

Reporters covering the Boulder Mountain avalanche were all eager to gain access to the scene but knew that wouldn’t be possible. So we pitched the idea of a pool to the Mounties and political leaders who were making decisions in the aftermath of the avalanche. They permitted photographer Jeff Bassett of The Canadian Press, the national news service, to fly over the site of the avalanche in a helicopter.

Here are the images Bassett took for the pool:

Boulder Mountain's Turbo Bowl just outside Revelstoke. Photo by Jeff Bassett/The Canadian Press/Pool
Snowmobiles lie scattered across the snow near the bottom of an avalanche run on Boulder Mountain, March 14. Search and rescue workers spent the day looking for victims in the debris in the area where a large avalanche occurred. Photo by Jeff Bassett/The Canadian Press/Pool
Search and rescue workers probe amongst wreckage and debris in the area where a large avalanche occurred near Revelstoke, BC, Sunday, March 14. Two men were killed in the avalanche. Photo by Jeff Bassett/The Canadian Press/Pool
Boulder Mountain's Turbo Bowl in Revelstoke, B.C., was taken a day after an avalanche struck on Saturday, March 13. About 200 people gathered on the mountain to watch the annual Big Iron Shoot Out, an annual snowmobiling event, when the snow slide hit. Photo by Jeff Bassett/The Canadian Press/Pool
More than a dozen snowmobiles lie in a pile near the bottom of an avalanche run on Boulder Mountain, March 14. Search and rescue workers spent the day looking for victims in the debris in the area where a large avalanche occurred near Revelstoke. Photo by Jeff Bassett/The Canadian Press/Pool
A helicopter flies over the top of Boulder Mountain, March 14 near the area where a deadly avalanche killed two men. Search and rescue workers spent the day looking for victims in the debris in the area where a large avalanche occurred near Revelstoke. Photo by Jeff Bassett/The Canadian Press/Pool

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