Yesterday was the first day of winter — and the one year anniversary of this backcountry skiing blog! You can view blog number one here.
The last 12 months of blogging have been an amazing experience. Someone asked me back when I started: “how can you come up with something to write about nearly every day — something people will actually find interesting?” All I can say is that the ease of finding subject matter has given me renewed faith in to how rich our sport is, and how wonderful mountain culture is in general. Among dozens of subjects, we’ve enjoyed covering hilarious old movies, powerful family mountaineering experiences, tons of gear tweaks and reviews, op-ed about the backcountry skiing industry, and so much more.
It’s incredible how the web allows anyone to become a publisher. Learn a bit about how things work, buy a domain name, set up web hosting, and off you go. As for things being “interesting,” we do our best and you all appear to be enjoying it — and when we fall short of the lofty “interesting-every-day” goal, here is an honest “sorry ’bout that.”
As to anyone becoming a publisher — a big issue with all this (the “blogsphere”), is how does one find authenticity with a bunch of publishers out there — especially if the reader doesn’t know the subject well? To that end, we’re doing everything we can here to present a personal viewpoint that has an honest feel. We do so by avoiding anonymity, sharing personal experience, by meeting many blog readers in person, and by my being a published author and well known individual in the backcountry skiing community who takes his reputation seriously and is accountable for what he does and says. Thus, I’ll continue to avoid personal attacks, rumor mongering and negativity — while still offering critical opinion about the backcountry skiing and outdoor recreation world.
That said, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for putting up with my sometimes lax editing and occasional rant. Self publishing is rewarding, but without a team of editors you never know what is going to slip over the sometimes low fence of your self discipline — so my apologies for anything that goes over the top.
And whoops, I almost forgot to thank all the folks who’ve supported my blogging over the past year: Our main advertisers Rando Gear, Black Diamond and Colorado Mountain College, my wife Lisa and son Louie, as well as friends Michael Kennedy, Penn Newhard, Craig Dostie, David Rothman, Carl Pelletier, Mark Worley, Tory Jackson, Mike Marolt, Peter Kelley, Bob Perlmutter, Dougald MacDonald, Tim Kelley, John Schweizer, Terry Ackerman — and many many others.
I get quite a few emails from blog readers, and answer nearly every one. Many suggest topics to cover, and I do so when the spirit moves. Others make excellent comments, which we publish when appropriate. Keep the comments coming!
So thanks everyone for making this a success. Happy holidays, merry Christmas — and as Adam Sandler (sort of) sings: happy happy happy happy Hanukkah!
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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.
