I’m now a Polo Ralph Lauren model (be glad: hats, not underwear). Check out this article on the Polo Website (2015, defunct link removed). The writer contacted me for a brief interview, then asked if I had any photos. In a moment of weakness I assumed they would use one of my online mug shots to illustrate my quotes in the article. Instead, I visit the site and I’m suddenly an un-named Polo lifestyle model! Move over Marky Mark, it’s now Louie Lou!
Polo’s publishing the backcountry skiing photos without caption or credit to the photographers is a huge bummer I’m trying to rectify — but it’s like trying to fix something at city hall. FYI, writer/photographer Brian Litz took the photo with the green hat (Polo – not), and Couloir Magazine publisher Craig Dostie took the black&white shot. As always, I hope an article such as this is good for the sport of backcountry skiing, but I doubt it. I think it’s more about Polo filling their kitchen-sink website up with fluffy suds. We’ll see if I can at least get Brian and Dostie’s names on their photos. Gad, the least they could of done is hot linked to here — or sent free cowboy hats or underwear to Litz and Dostie!
Backcountry Skiing Blog comment from Mark: “Yeah, I have always wanted to say I had 1 3/4 baths. So the ski bums used to stay in old mining buildings? Yvon Chouinard apparently lived in old defunct coal kilns or something like that while eating catfood and hocking ‘biners on the street. The good ol’ days… Where the heck did he keep his forge?”
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.