Ski Magazines Worth Buying

I was perusing the magazine stand the other day and ended up buying not only one, but two skiing magazines, which doubles my combined retail purchase of ski mags for the last two years.  The first one was the 2012 Skiing Adventure Issue which I bought mainly for the Grant Gunderson double fold-out cover photo.  It captures everything that is great about skiing in general and backcountry skiing in particular.  The magazine also has a nice profile on Bill Briggs, some good trip reports and a concise backcountry gear guide.

The 2012 Skiing Magazine Adventure Issue with 1/2 of the spectacular Grant Gunderson photo on the cover.

The second purchase was the 40th Anniversary issue of Powder Magazine. I was especially psyched to see this as it was kind of a flashback to the vintage, high quality days of Powder Magazine and did an excellent job capturing the spirit of skiing in the last 4 decades. It has some fantastic retro ads from the 80’s and 90’s, and killer photos of Glen Plake, Mike Hattrup and many others as young punksters.  They also wrangled many of the past editors and managing editors, including Les Anthony, Rob Story, Steve Casimiro, and Jake Mo, into writing about their experiences at Powder, which in itself is like a history of the history of the sport.  Plus, many of them damn funny as well as being excellent writers.

Powder Mag's 40th Anniversary issue - a collector's item for sure.

One of my favorite articles from Powder’s 40th was titled “Legacy” and is all about skiing families.  It includes profiles of the Chickering-Ayers from Mad River, the Collinsons from Snowbird, Mahres, Gaffney’s, Pehotas and Newcombs.  I especially love the Bruce Benedict photo on page 23 of a dad teaching his kid to ski.  You can smell the smoke coming off of dad’s thighs from doing an endless power wedge, feel the slop in his unbuckled boots and sense his desire to pass along the gift of skiing to Little Emily, as it says on her hat.  “Come on, come on… straighten those skis out, look forward, concentrate.  This is going to be a blast!’
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