Ski Mags

[riverc0il]

Usually see some posts around here about the major three ski rags... Ski, Skiing, Powder, etc. Lots of quality ski porn flying under the radar though. Can't remember seeing any chatter about a newbie to the field... I just recently got my hands on The Ski Journal. Quality publication with not many ads. For those of you who got in on the N'East deal, it is similar in quality, slightly better layout and paper quality, but of course dedicated to only skiing (not New England focused but does have a Jay article this month). They are only on their second issue. Rather expensive due to low ad content. Much better than the other rags in quality though. Since Couloir merged into Backcountry, Backcountry is still my favorite as TSJ doesn't specifically focus on earned turns and is pricey. I just threw up a review of TSJ here for those curious. So what is that, eight ski rags? Ski, Skiing, Powder, Freeskier, Backcountry, The Ski Journal, Telemark, Snow (new upper end rag, maybe not even a "ski" rag proper). What else is being published focused on skiing? I am not including small localized printings such as NESM's Journal. Feel free to chime in with Board magazines, I am not familiar with them.

 

[drjeff]

My favorite isn't necessarily a ski mag as much as it's an industry trade mag, Ski Area Management (www.saminfo.com)

While you won't see stories about hucking big cliffs, or back country earn your turns stories, you will find tons of info about everything from ski lift technical operations, to snowmaking, to park design to rental shop layout. I look forward to each bi-monthly issue!

 

[severine]

Brian picked up an issue of SBC Skier the other day. It was supposedly for me while I was sick on Sunday but he quickly disappeared with it, so I can't say anything as to the quality of the content. All I know is it was Canadian and the pages were high quality.

 

[billski]

others...

I have really warmed to Ski Racing magazine over the past two years. It's not for the social or real estate/vacation topics, but a lot of good articles on life style, equipment, technique, training, the business of skiing, sponsorship, glacier skiing, summer training, and of course race results reportage. I share my copy with non-racers and they really enjoy it. Not cheap, but very, very few ads, except those for very serious equipment. It's all meat, about 54 pages, can wrap you up for a whole evening of reading.

Skiipress World (free at stores also all the content is online, but a little hard to read) has had some really good "fabric of skiing" articles and gear review. The writing is very good. I look for it regularly, it's not a subscription.

I stick with SKI magazine, but gave up on SKIING, it was a little too lightweight.

I read Ski Journal last month, it's pretty promising.

 

[JoshG]

Fellow magazine junkie.

Check out Off-Piste.
http://www.offpistemag.com/
It is available for free at certain shops but worth it to support their low subscription. I much prefer it to Ski/Skiing. Its rough, newspaper...and obviously a small 'zine...but the content is good. They focus on BD (thus the name). Reviews, recipies, avi knowledge and general snow enthusiasm.

Canada's SBC Skier is also very good. I would compare it to Powder...perhaps a little better since lately powder has been more focused on layout and short articles. SBC does a good job getting a little more indepth on travel and such. http://www.sbcskier.com/

Kootenay Mountain Journal is another good Canadian centric (BC) magazine. Very well put together, good writers and beautiful pictures. I had a subscription awhile back but it got messed up in a move and I don't think I ever got my remaining issues which left a sour taste. They post up some content on their site in pdfs.
http://www.kmcmag.com/features.html

I recently got TSJ and have enjoyed my first issue (#2). I think your review is accurate. Anybody have issue one? It sold out and I am very intersted in reading the article on the future of day trip mtns...PM me if you have it.

 

[thinnmann]

I stick with SKI magazine, but gave up on SKIING, it was a little too lightweight.

A longtime reader of SKI, I recently got a free sub to Skiing. If what you say is true about Skiing being lightweight, then they may have changed their perspective or target audience. This is not a mag for 5-day-per-year skiers. Looks to me like they are focusing on big mountains, fat skis, big air and expert off-piste. The language and images look targeted towards single 20-30 somethings. The editors are keeping adult language in the stories. The images are of hard adventure skiing, along with lots of drinks-in-hand partying and a few nice butts. Skinet.com rags might be going for complementary reads: SKI for the aging boomers with the bucks, and Skiing for the restless youth. Their web site seems to split the difference. It is almost a refreshing change from the yearly round of predictable articles that appear seemingly cyclically in SKI. Instead of making me feel like some people's vacation homes are 10X more expensive than my year-round home, so far reading through Skiing makes me feel like I want to go out and go big.

 

[ERJ-145CA]

I like SnowEast magazine a lot. They publish 4 issues during the winter and are in their third year now. I picked up an issue at Borders a couple of years ago and then subscribed. It usually has a few articles about Northeastern resorts and a bunch of columns about Northeastern skiing and snowboarding.
www.snoweastmagazine.com

 

[bvibert]

TSJ looks promising. The price tag does seem a bit high though. Although I guess when you look at it it's still less than the price of most lift tickets for a year subscription....

 

[riverc0il]

TSJ looks promising. The price tag does seem a bit high though. Although I guess when you look at it it's still less than the price of most lift tickets for a year subscription....

The other way to look at it is that many "trade" priced novels and paperback non-fiction are $15.00+ so it is less than the cost of many books.

 

[severine]

The other way to look at it is that many "trade" priced novels and paperback non-fiction are $15.00+ so it is less than the cost of many books.

That's the same point I made to him.

 

[bvibert]

I guess I'm just used to getting mags for much cheaper or free, but then they're mostly filled with ads...

 

[kbroderick]

I plunked down for a year of TSJ not long ago, and I'm about 2/3 of the way through the first issue I received. The writing is good, and the photos kick ass. I wasn't terribly impressed by the Jay Peak article--it seemed to be a bit marketing-ish--but I've been blown away by a lot of the photos. I'm not sure how much is better selection than other magazines and how much is better quality production (i.e. better paper and printing processes), but I'm pretty happy with the purchase at this point in time.

I don't subscribe to Ski, as I'm not even close to being in the target demographic, and I plunked down $10 to support Pico Ski Educational Foundation, watch Playground, and get a subscription to Skiing; if it wasn't all three combined, I'm not sure I would've been so inclined to drop the $10. I have a Powder subscription pending (bought it via a clearinghouse on eBay, so there's additional lead team that should be ending pretty darn soon) and a Freeskier subscription. Oh, and I do get Ski Racing via USSA membership. Overall, I find TSJ a bigger treat to read, with more feature-type stories and the better photography I already mentioned.

 

[riverc0il]

I agree, the Jay Peak article was lacking in.... authenticity!!! LOL

But it was nice to read an eastern article in a national magazine. It made out Jay to be the center of New England soul skiing and Jay to be some sort of anti-resort, hardly. Chic Chocs were recently featured in Backcountry (long article too) which was nice.

 

[inhalexhale]

Usually see some posts around here about the major three ski rags... Ski, Skiing, Powder, etc. Lots of quality ski porn flying under the radar though. Can't remember seeing any chatter about a newbie to the field... I just recently got my hands on The Ski Journal. Quality publication with not many ads. For those of you who got in on the N'East deal, it is similar in quality, slightly better layout and paper quality, but of course dedicated to only skiing (not New England focused but does have a Jay article this month). They are only on their second issue. Rather expensive due to low ad content. Much better than the other rags in quality though. Since Couloir merged into Backcountry, Backcountry is still my favorite as TSJ doesn't specifically focus on earned turns and is pricey. I just threw up a review of TSJ here for those curious. So what is that, eight ski rags? Ski, Skiing, Powder, Freeskier, Backcountry, The Ski Journal, Telemark, Snow (new upper end rag, maybe not even a "ski" rag proper). What else is being published focused on skiing? I am not including small localized printings such as NESM's Journal. Feel free to chime in with Board magazines, I am not familiar with them.

I was just telling a bunch of people about Ski Journal. It is wicked expensive but AWESOME, I totally love it. Legit writers, talented photographers and they have a lot of style. I like magazines that capture the real feeling of a place...they had a great article about Montana areas in their debut issue. I LOVE Montana so maybe I am biased. I haven't seen the second issue though, I haven't been able to find it and won't buy a subscription....I'd rather just buy the mag once I find it.

I tend to pass on SKI and SKIING, though we have them here in the office and my boss reads them religiously. I think my favorites (in order) are The Ski Journal, Powder, SBC Skier, Backcountry, then the rest... Freeskier, SKI, SKIING and whatever else. We love the dudes that run Freeskier but there is a ton of advertising...non-stop advertising.... and I am not much into the free-whatever aspect of the sport (though it is certainly an important and growing one). SnowEAST is another good one that just keeps getting better.

I don't really include Ski Area Management in the line-up, but I do read it, and it's pretty good.

 

[billski]

I was just telling a bunch of people about Ski Journal. It is wicked expensive

"I was just telling a bunch of people about Ski Journal. It is wicked expensive"

Are we talking about the same Ski Journal that I pickup in my local shop for FREE? (The November issue is 34 pages.)

 

[inhalexhale]

"I was just telling a bunch of people about Ski Journal. It is wicked expensive"

Are we talking about the same Ski Journal that I pickup in my local shop for FREE? (The November issue is 34 pages.)

An entire year of SKI or SKIING, or even Powder and Backcountry is around $10. One single issue of TSJ is around $12. A year subscription is $40. A little pricey for a monthly, no? I understand WHY they charge that much, but it is pretty expensive.

 

[riverc0il]

"I was just telling a bunch of people about Ski Journal. It is wicked expensive"

Are we talking about the same Ski Journal that I pickup in my local shop for FREE? (The November issue is 34 pages.)

Definitely not. This is around 112 pages and only about 12 of the pages have ads.

 

[riverc0il]

An entire year of SKI or SKIING, or even Powder and Backcountry is around $10. One single issue of TSJ is around $12. A year subscription is $40. A little pricey for a monthly, no? I understand WHY they charge that much, but it is pretty expensive.

You get what you pay for, I guess. Though it is expensive and I don't think the subscription price is worth it. But it is a FAR better magazine than Ski or Skiing. I flipped through a Skiing Magazine while waiting for my snow tires to be mounted at the shop on Friday. Lame. The difference in advertising, quality of pictures, quality of writing, professionalism, and layout is night and day. I think TSJ should increase ads a little bit to get the cover price under $10. There are pretty much no ads on pages 10-100 in TSJ. They could ad a few full page ads and no one would be the wiser (and most people on AZ know how I feel about ads... ).