My initial impression of Snowfall, based on a quick scroll-peek of the piece, was another long boring read with a cool layout.  However, as I dove into the reading, I started to enjoy the long read, for a number of reasons.  I was drawn into the story immediately from the descriptive, imagery-filled setting introduction, and the extreme details only kept me wanting to learn more.

The introduction of Elyse Saustad’s story scene was probably the highlight of my Snowfall read because her fast, action filled scene that gave me feelings of both horror and curiosity.  The addition of highlighted video clip links also brought the piece more to life.  Then, the aerial map with the labelled points really helped me to understand visually, what the ski-area boundaries described in the story’s text were.  The choice of using still visuals for the historical depiction scene was also very reasonable.  Next, the placement of character’s pictures with their brief bio’s captioned beside their related scenes in the story was a very nice touch.  It was definitely not a necessary feature but definitely a very thoughtful feature.  After that, the slideshow, showing the many scenes and events that night was impressive.  It made me briefly wonder whether the author had the pictures beforehand and wrote Snowfall based on/around the pictures, or whether the author had written the story and searched for these pictures afterwards.  The last three lines in the end of Snowfall appeared to have a subtle lesson for readers, which is to not ski in backcountry areas, no matter how pro or how “high-caliber” of a skier you are.  To me, the lines were written very gently, as to not offend any of the story’s characters.

A potential story that could be told using this format would be a story about how certain people in undeveloped countries live. The aerial map showing where exactly their location is in the world, short video clips with interviewed example characters, a slideshow to show various aspects of their way of life, and the highlighted lines to show how the multimedia examples connect, would all be helpful for this sort of story.