Do you feel special? According to The New York Times, you are special. The Times recently ran a story about how the outdoor sports community is leading the charge on a renaissance for print magazines, which is not really news to us. We make magazines and Mountain Life is for, by, and all about people who love to get out there and get after it. But when we look at the broader picture, especially south of the border, there’s no shortage of great niche outdoor magazines thriving in the digital era.
Mountain Gazette owner, publisher and editor Mike Rogge is on the front lines of preserving print media and the value of an analog experience. The Gazette is currently tallest poppy in what seems to be a fairly healthy ecosystem of magazines aimed at outdoor people who understand the power of a physical experience and want something tangible out of life.
This episode is a bit different from some of the others. It’s very conversational. Less of an interview and more of just a couple dudes talking. Which I know is how superstar music producer, author, champion of the creative mind Rick Rubin likes to do things. But does that mean it’s going to work for us? We’ll see. This is our 48th episode here at Live It Up, so why not try some new things? Also, it’s summer, but Mike and I talk a lot about skiing. Part of that is because he’s a legit real-deal skier who knows all the ins and outs of the sport and its stars.
He also a big fan of a ski movie I made with my buddy Travis Tetro back around the turn of the millennium called Parental Advisory. Mike really wanted to talk about that because it was a seminal piece of media in his life. Which is a nice tie-in because we shot that movie on one of the first generations of digital cameras and it only came out on VHS tape (analog) and now Mike Rogge is on the front lines of preserving print media and showcasing the value of an analog experience with the Mountain Gazette, which was a historic mountain culture magazine that started in the 1960s. Mike resurrected the Gazette in 2020 and ditched almost all the current digital pandering trends (no sponsored content). No web stories, no gear reviews, no top 10 lists, no resort guides.
Everything that everyone else was doing to get clicks and impressions, Mike threw it out the door. And he launched the mag on a subscription-only business model and he launched it big, literally big, 11 by 17 inches. This mag is huge, which means the photos look amazing and also means there’s a lot of room for text. So Mountain Gazette prints really fine, long-form journalism in an era when few do such a thing. We strive to do our best here at Mountain Life, of course, and I think we do a pretty damn fine job most of the time, especially since our mags are free…–Feet Banks
Here’s a short excerpt from Feet and Mike’s conversation:
ML: Do you feel a pressure because we’re the last bastion of print and we have to take that very seriously—do you ever feel like you’re not allowed to have that kind of fun that spoke to you when you were younger?
Mike Rogge: No, I think it’s the opposite. I think we need to lean more into it. Magazine publishers and editors should be looking in the mirror daily, asking, What am I doing today and why am I doing it? For example, gear guides. Gear guides were built for the Internet. They were built for TikTok, they were built for Instagram, they were built for affiliate. If that’s what you want to do, do it. That’s not what print magazines were made for. Some people would disagree with me, but I think print magazines are timeless. And I want to live in a world that’s timeless. I want to live in a world where the things that we do now have importance because someone could pick them up 3300 years from now and be like, Damn… wasn’t that sweet? How can we have fun? And how can we be better people? How can we take better care of the earth?
Every story that I put in the magazine is really meaningful to me. They’re meaningful to our contributors because they ideate with them, but as far as having fun, my intro letter to the current magazine is about that—about going out this summer and trying to expand your five senses and smell, hear, touch, taste, just live in the moment and feel it all and bring it all in and be human and live your life. And the photo is from my middle-school friend. She was in a wedding and is free soloing underneath this arch at a wedding in a cocktail dress, in a ‘hold my beer’ moment. I mean, she’s a third-grade math teacher in upstate New York. And I was like, This is the vibe.
All due respect to Alex Honnold, that’s not Alex Honnold. You know, she’s just a person in a cocktail dress climbing.
Listen to Feet and Mike’s conversation here. This episode was sponsored by Jack Wolfskin.
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