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Because good ski writing is as rare as a powder day (even though it shouldn't be)

Readers or amigos or random opinion-havers will sometimes mention that if I don’t do this or that thing - usually regarding The Storm’s I-95-unpredictable content cadence - I will find myself with - GASP - competitors!

Oh Dear Lord what ever would I do with more thoughtful ski content in my life? I mean as much as I enjoy self-righteous Twitter knobs lecturing the masses about snow tires, I launched The Storm in 2019 because I wanted to read it. The magazines had wilted to the verge of their pending extinction, and the only ski media remaining seemed to be press release reprints in industry trades, everything-is-rad-let’s-not-offend-the-mountain-overlords stoke pieces, and a handful of big-mouthed morons who had declared themselves the voices of AmeriSki by collecting the most social media minions.

Much to my surprise, The Storm worked. It is the largest ski newsletter on Substack, my full-time job, and a growing and sustainable small business. But I don’t fear competition. I want other smart, interesting voices saying smart, interesting things about skiing. Like skiing itself, ski writing functions better as an ecosystem - Snowbird doesn’t work as an experts’ haven without Park City as a tourist vacuum, and Park City doesn’t work as a mass-market resort without Nordic Valley as a cheap and un-intimidating teaching center. Ski writing needs big voices, loud voices, sensible voices, local voices, tourist voices, pragmatic voices - all streaming around and into one another. That we lack this point-of-view diversity is why my opinions on issues like the Little Cottonwood Gondola (build it), chairlift safety bars (I like them), skinning (you’re skiing in the wrong direction, Bro), and base-area development (the best environmental policy would put more beds at the mountain to temper sprawl and traffic), often spark such feral let’s-cancel-this-guy reactions among the Brobots. “Well what do you know? You live in NEW YORK CITY!” I mean sick burn Bro. But do you have anything to say that isn’t code for how rad or virtuous you are because you can afford a spare set of $1,200 tires?

My other lifestyle obsession aside from skiing is Michigan Wolverines football. I’ve watched every game live for 25 years, often in person, because I have season tickets even though I live 600 miles from Michigan Stadium. The Wolverines only play 12 games per year, but I think about the team every day. This is easy to do, because there are a half-dozen podcasts, a daily radio show, and several blogs that exhaustively cover the team (one of them, MGoBlog, was a huge inspiration for the voice and tenor of The Storm). And yet, Michigan is just one of 138 teams playing at the FBS level. They’re not all prestige programs with Wolverines-level coverage, but several dozen of them support at least an equally sprawling and fanatic media ecosystem.

The world’s tens of millions of skiers deserve better than the scraps of Me-Jump-Off-Cliff stoke, empty corporate quotes, and sourpuss whining from “locals” who moved to Utah five weeks ago. They deserve thoughtful, clever, enlightening, uplifting writing and they deserve a huge range of ideas to consider.

So when I read this post from a newly launched Substack out of New Zealand, I could hardly believe it was real. I expected to skim, but I read, because the writing is original, thoughtful, interesting:

In Europe, winter arrives with a certain institutional confidence. In Japan, snow seems to fall with the reliability of a government department that happens to be very good at powder. In Canada, winter often looks as though it has turned up early, unpacked properly, and intends to stay for dinner.

In New Zealand, winter arrives like a builder.

It says it will be there Monday.

Then maybe Wednesday.

Then it sends a text saying the weather has been a bit tricky, but it is definitely not far away.

So we wait.

More:

The wind did it.

Not wind in the polite sense. Not the alpine breeze that moves through European resort villages and makes people in matching jackets adjust their scarves. This was New Zealand mountain wind. It had arrived from Antarctica in a foul mood, crossed the Southern Ocean, climbed the Southern Alps, and now wished to personally remove my face.

I was standing near the top of a ski field that, technically speaking, was open. A lift was turning. A few skiers were moving. Somewhere below, a café was selling flat whites and pies with the quiet confidence of a civilisation that has survived worse things than sideways sleet. The sky was blue in one direction, black in another, and directly above me was a kind of white-grey violence that made all colour meaningless.

A child in a race suit shot past, utterly unconcerned.

Behind him came his father, less fast but more committed, making the expression common to New Zealand ski parents everywhere. It said: I have driven two hours, paid for the passes, carried three pairs of skis, argued about gloves, and by God we are skiing.

This is New Zealand skiing.

Not glamorous exactly. Not smooth. Not always sensible. But fiercely alive.

Anyway, do yourself a favor and read the rest of it. And also subscribe to The 170 Project newsletter. Because more sign-ups will inspire the author, who will hopefully continue writing very good and interesting ski content (I don’t know the author and have not communicated with them, though once I launch the new podcast format in September, this is the kind of piece that would inspire me to say “Hey Brah come on the pod and talk New Zealand skiing for us U.S. Americans? And by the way, you spelled ‘colour’ wrong. Wait, we’re the ones spelling it wrong? Brah maybe you haven’t heard but these COLORS don’t run.”)

Sorry that one got away from me. Link:

Waiting for Winter in New Zealand

If you’re out there and you’re reading The Storm and you’re thinking “this is cool but Stu is an idiot and doesn’t understand these 75 things about skiing and ski life and ski culture and about radness and why he lacks it, and I should start my own podcast/newsletter but I won’t because I don’t want to step on his turf,” please stop thinking that right now. I mean you can think I’m dumb but don’t worry about a turf war or whatever. Start the newsletter and podcast. Not only would I not be upset, I would be absolutely ecstatic. I would (probably) help you promote it. I would have you on the podcast to tell me why it’s better than mine. That, after all, is how America works: find a market and fight to the death to win a piece of it. Right now, skiing is a badly underserved media market. That I’ve proven, with The Storm, that there is an audience willing to pay for quality ski content in 2026 does not mean that I’ve cornered or claimed or tapped out that audience. It just means that I’ve made contact and proven that life can exist in even the most inhospitable environments, like a nation whose brains have been removed and stowed in their Pet Rectangles. And with 10 million or more skiers in America - most of whom, um, are not exactly cashing in foodstamps to buy supper - there is certainly potential to engage them with inventive content about their very favorite thing.

Anyway here are the other skiing Substacks that I recommend. Please consider at least joining their free subscriber tier. They are all different and all do their own bit to keep the scaffolding of ski journalism up while renovations on the main facility continue:

For updates on New England skiing, from the team that maintains the excellent - if eclectic - New England Ski History site:

For the family skier:

From our friends in Australia:

A more conversational voice, out of Colorado:

This big-mountain patroller makes me laugh:

And Halley O’Brien, who has imported her upbeat, clever Snow Report to Substack:

Oh yeah and then there’s this idiot:

Are there other ski Substacks that I should know about? I’m looking for lively voices saying interesting things and publishing consistently.