High End Magazines of Alpinism

Heads up y’all, if you’ve got some Christmas bonus cash lying around, perhaps grace your coffee table with a subscription to Ski Journal. Or, the other magazine of ski alpinism, Alpinist. Yep, turn to p.p. 53 of Alpinist for a blow-by-blow of the first ski descent of the Hossack-MacGowan on the Grand Teton, or p.p. 54-55 for a double-wide center spread of Doug Coombs in 2003 guiding a ski descent of the Grand. Oh, almost forgot, Alpinist even includes a snowboarder in this issue, with a shot of Stephen Koch during the first snowboard descent of the Grand in 1989.

Backcountry skiing magazines

Back to our fave, The Ski Journal: This ish (Vol 4, #3) includes the usual raft of feet-itching-for-ski-boots photography. Getting past that (it takes a while), best article is “Skid Cribs,” an exposition of the Whistler housing scene. And we’re not talking “housing” as in mansions, but rather things like squatter’s cabins and crawl spaces. Or, the ultimate in dirtbag housing philosophy, “…squatters should build real houses, for credibility.”

WildSnow many thumbs up for both mags.