I discovered The Storm in the early months of this year while (religiously) browsing Liftblog, when one of your podcasts was linked in one of the News Roundups. Discovering the podcast was incredibly exciting for me, as skiing, aerial ropeways and the ski industry in general has always been a major fascination of mine ever since I was a kid. To give perspective, 13 & 14 year old me had two hour long discussions with the lift ops manager of Sun Valley Idaho two years in a row, as I went to the major skiing conventions in Portland Oregon every year when I lived there. It was interesting - higher ups for ski resorts would often be the ones representing their ski resorts at that convention, and Sun Valley sent out their lift ops manager a couple years in a row, and there was 13 year old me, chatting with him about the technicalities of Sun Valley's lift fleet for hours! I also remember a great chat with the Mt. Hood Meadows vice president at age 14, discussing future plans for the ski resort while I was up there for a summer marathon.
So finding a podcast and journal that actually does a deep dive into the ski industry is as exciting as it is fresh - most snowsports related journalism focuses on its soul, which is great, but a lot of us are searching for the brains of it too, like your slogan says. You've filled a major gap in snowsports journalism and I know for a fact the readership and listenership will continue to skyrocket, as there are many passionate skiers & snowboarders out there that will naturally become curious about the inner-workings of the industry for their favorite activity.
I've learned a ton from The Storm. I'm on the opposite side of the country skiing in Washington & Idaho while you're based in the Northeast with roots in the Midwest, so all of your podcasts and writing has given me so much information about the two regions of US skiing I'm most in the dark on, which is Midwest and East Coast skiing. I knew a little bit about East Coast skiing, Killington and its sister resort Pico have been on my bucket list since I was a kid, but I knew basically nothing about Midwest skiing, and I never could have guessed how interesting that region is! Ski areas that can be described as 350 feet of vertical, 350 lifts, 350 snow guns, and artificially landscaped terrain sounds so different than what I'm used to!
Also, the humor that appears in most of your articles never fails to crack me up, even if I'm laughing like a buffoon in my workplace break room filled with people silently sitting around. Here's to hoping we get another great satire piece like your golden "Single-Day Lift Ticket at Vail Hits $1,556" article when April Fool's 2022 rolls around!
Funny story, I apparently live under a rock and I quite literally never had even heard about the Mountain Collective, Epic, Ikon and Indy Passes until I discovered The Storm... before that, I only knew about the Powder Alliance. In early 2020, I had a huge Whistler Blackcomb trip planned out and I had a ridiculous lift ticket bill, but (thankfully?) the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic cancelled and henceforth refunded those plans. Now, when I get to Whistler Blackcomb, Stevens Pass and Sun Valley next season (with Park City and Snowbasin UT, or Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood CA as backup plans if I can't get across the Canadian border), I will have an Epic Pass and not be shelling out $72-$142 each day... your enlightenment saved me a ridiculous amount of money and honestly I wouldn't have such ambitious plans for this and the 2022-2023 ski season if I didn't know about these passes. My fiance and I are rocking the Epic Pass for the first time ever this season and we are incredibly excited, and the 2022-2023 season will likely see her and I rocking the Ikon Pass. Now, with the probably thousands of dollars my fiance and I have saved learning what we have on The Storm (The Pass Tracker 5000 is Snowbel Prize worthy), I'd happily pay a couple bucks a month or however you see paid-subscription in the future going because your journalism kicks ass! 99% of the time I click away when I see a paywall or use outline.com to bypass the paywall, but I'd happily subscribe and support the continued growth of The Storm. I think if you gave new readers a couple articles or couple weeks of a free trial, they'll definitely end up wanting to read more and stick around. Your influence and presence continues to grow, now we have ski resorts regularly tweeting at you or reaching out directly, and your Instagram following has pretty much tripled ever since I started following not too long ago. Cheers to continued growth and success of The Storm Skiing Journal & Podcast!
If you have any curiosities and questions about west coast skiing, feel free to reach out to me! I'm most familiar with Oregon, Washington, and Idaho which in my opinion feel like truly underrated ski regions. Save for a few stragglers way out in the middle of nowhere, I've skied almost every resort in Oregon and Washington. I remember on your podcast with Doug Fish when you were asking why White Pass, WA was one of the top resorts in Indy Pass redemptions, and I wished that one day you'd have the opportunity to check out that place - it's a complete blast! Honestly it's one of my favorite ski resorts of all time, and I'm saying that having been to big name places like Whistler Blackcomb, Sun Valley, Heavenly and Mt. Bachelor to name a few.
Man, we need a Stuart Winchester cameo in winter sports games like Steep and Rider's Republic. Lol
I really enjoy getting the alert that there is a new podcast ready to go. That's my time to decompress, open a cold beer and be transported to an awesome place I have yet to ski or revisit some great places I've been to. For 60 minutes or so I can open up the trail map and follow along with conversation, look up interesting facts and hopefully add the ski resort to my itinerary for the coming season. Unlike most media these days, I feel like I actually learn something from the Storm. Your essay about the abandoned Tuxedo Ridge was effing Pulitzer Prize worthy. Congrats on two years and thanks for putting this whole thing together.
Congratulations Stuart! I first knew about you in the FB Indy Pass group when you were able to announce new resorts for them which has continued since. I became a regular reader and listener when you interviewed Tim Meyer. Even though Caberfae is almost 3 hours away and I live a stone’s throw from Mt. Holly, I consider Cabby my home (only Michigan skiers would understand). I decided to listen because of that and am glad I did.
I think what catches me is that I am interested in skiing and business development among about 343 other things and your interviews pull back the curtain on what goes into running these ski areas. All the on-hill management, regional geography, planning, marketing, etc. is fascinating and you have found a niche that few, if any, knew existed.
Even though I’m relatively new to The Storm, it’s clear you are investing A LOT of time and energy into it. That’s time that comes after your day job and away from your family so I’m glad you’re stepping into ways to monetize your blog/podcast. I’m not a huge paywall fan but if that’s what it takes then go for it!
I look forward to another 2 years and watching you develop The Storm in a way that is sustainable and enjoyable. Maybe I’ll run across you on one of my Indy Pass jaunts out east but until then keep up the good work!
Love The Storm. Great content and style. Almost exclusively a New England skier but enjoy the content from ski areas that I will likely never visit. Mostly enjoy you exploration of the business side and stories and less about the specifics of lift replacement. The recent Tim Cohee podcast episode was right up my alley. Was always wondering why you do not charge for this content.. I would be happy to pay...
Happy Anniversary! I started listening/reading to learn more about the local hills across the NE I grew up with and now am introducing to my kids. Your content is relevant, well written and generally not found elsewhere. You've introduced me to LiftBlog and his awesome database and NYSki Blog. Gore is now my home mountain of the last couple of years. I got hooked with the Fairbanks Group (skied Jiminy a lot growing up) pod and went back to listen to all the great ones. I grew up on the east coast but spent most of my 20s and 30s skiing the west. I love hearing about Taos and West mountain. The hidden gems, come back stories or other smaller bucket listen places all across North America really interest me. How about highlighting Silverton, Co or Powder Ut? Or back to the east with an ORDA podcast?
Hi Stuart. Another great post. You once again inspire me to get back to my blog and get clarity about I write about. Moving away from a focus on the RV in skiing to more of a focus on powder skiing. Where to find it and my experiences in the wild. A bit on the migration of a powder skiing alpine skier starting to move more into the backcountry where one can always find powder. How to do that responsibly so I don’t ski off a cliff or get buried in an avalanche.
As for you expanding out of the Northeast, that is a bulls eye for me. I have never skied in the Northeast and likely never will. Northern Rocky Mountains in the US and Canada is where you likely find me.
Initial reaction is mixed feelings about the change in scope, for sure. When I found The Storm (and, granted, we're talking like just a few months ago), I was just getting back into skiing with my kids, after a 20-year break, and the information you had online (and your direct advice in comments, which I really appreciated!) was like a refresher course for me. I've been gobbling up the Northeast content ever since. It's been perfect: a great blog, by a knowledgeable guy who writes well, with long form interviews I can listen to on the way to work, about the places in the Northeast that I will actually go to, and most importantly, something that wasn't fixated on Western US skiing which just has no relevance to me. I'm not getting on a plane with my kids to ski any time soon, just as my parents never took my sister and I on a plane to ski when I was a kid; we're going to take 4-hour weekend road trips in NY, and 7-hour weekend road trips to VT, ME and NH, to ski on whatever we find there, and we're going to be exhausted after, and do it "on the cheap," and we're going love it anyway. So for me, hearing about places like West, Greek Peak, Titus, Mt. Snow or Berkshire East is awesome, and from a purely selfish perspective, a change in scope means less of the content I'm here for. It also kind of pokes at a decades-old chip on my shoulder as a Northeast skier; I mean, who hasn't been enjoying an awesome day in VT, just thrilled to be out there, only to have some guy ruin it with stories of his trips to Aspen or Vail? Man, I hated that guy.
-BUT-
I get that there are not unlimited ski areas in NY and the Northeast to talk about. And that the skiing center of gravity in the US is still in the West, so you'd be crazy not to bring that into the mix. And I also really enjoyed the bit on Australian skiing, and the rise of skiing in China.
So I think it's awesome you're expanding a bit, and since I think you are in nearly the same boat as me (young kids, living in the NYC metro area, etc.), I know you won't forget about us Northeast day trippers! Good luck!
Happy 2 Years - Stuart!!! Keep killing it, even as you go national. Would love to see you keep providing the inside scoop on the industry, how Indies find sustained success, how mountains are year round diversifying in wake of unpredictable winters, and of course how the big mountains are screwing it all up by increasing uphill capacity - ensuring too many skiers are skiing-off the goods by 10am and leaving us all to ski shear ice for the rest of the day.
I discovered The Storm in the early months of this year while (religiously) browsing Liftblog, when one of your podcasts was linked in one of the News Roundups. Discovering the podcast was incredibly exciting for me, as skiing, aerial ropeways and the ski industry in general has always been a major fascination of mine ever since I was a kid. To give perspective, 13 & 14 year old me had two hour long discussions with the lift ops manager of Sun Valley Idaho two years in a row, as I went to the major skiing conventions in Portland Oregon every year when I lived there. It was interesting - higher ups for ski resorts would often be the ones representing their ski resorts at that convention, and Sun Valley sent out their lift ops manager a couple years in a row, and there was 13 year old me, chatting with him about the technicalities of Sun Valley's lift fleet for hours! I also remember a great chat with the Mt. Hood Meadows vice president at age 14, discussing future plans for the ski resort while I was up there for a summer marathon.
So finding a podcast and journal that actually does a deep dive into the ski industry is as exciting as it is fresh - most snowsports related journalism focuses on its soul, which is great, but a lot of us are searching for the brains of it too, like your slogan says. You've filled a major gap in snowsports journalism and I know for a fact the readership and listenership will continue to skyrocket, as there are many passionate skiers & snowboarders out there that will naturally become curious about the inner-workings of the industry for their favorite activity.
I've learned a ton from The Storm. I'm on the opposite side of the country skiing in Washington & Idaho while you're based in the Northeast with roots in the Midwest, so all of your podcasts and writing has given me so much information about the two regions of US skiing I'm most in the dark on, which is Midwest and East Coast skiing. I knew a little bit about East Coast skiing, Killington and its sister resort Pico have been on my bucket list since I was a kid, but I knew basically nothing about Midwest skiing, and I never could have guessed how interesting that region is! Ski areas that can be described as 350 feet of vertical, 350 lifts, 350 snow guns, and artificially landscaped terrain sounds so different than what I'm used to!
Also, the humor that appears in most of your articles never fails to crack me up, even if I'm laughing like a buffoon in my workplace break room filled with people silently sitting around. Here's to hoping we get another great satire piece like your golden "Single-Day Lift Ticket at Vail Hits $1,556" article when April Fool's 2022 rolls around!
Funny story, I apparently live under a rock and I quite literally never had even heard about the Mountain Collective, Epic, Ikon and Indy Passes until I discovered The Storm... before that, I only knew about the Powder Alliance. In early 2020, I had a huge Whistler Blackcomb trip planned out and I had a ridiculous lift ticket bill, but (thankfully?) the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic cancelled and henceforth refunded those plans. Now, when I get to Whistler Blackcomb, Stevens Pass and Sun Valley next season (with Park City and Snowbasin UT, or Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood CA as backup plans if I can't get across the Canadian border), I will have an Epic Pass and not be shelling out $72-$142 each day... your enlightenment saved me a ridiculous amount of money and honestly I wouldn't have such ambitious plans for this and the 2022-2023 ski season if I didn't know about these passes. My fiance and I are rocking the Epic Pass for the first time ever this season and we are incredibly excited, and the 2022-2023 season will likely see her and I rocking the Ikon Pass. Now, with the probably thousands of dollars my fiance and I have saved learning what we have on The Storm (The Pass Tracker 5000 is Snowbel Prize worthy), I'd happily pay a couple bucks a month or however you see paid-subscription in the future going because your journalism kicks ass! 99% of the time I click away when I see a paywall or use outline.com to bypass the paywall, but I'd happily subscribe and support the continued growth of The Storm. I think if you gave new readers a couple articles or couple weeks of a free trial, they'll definitely end up wanting to read more and stick around. Your influence and presence continues to grow, now we have ski resorts regularly tweeting at you or reaching out directly, and your Instagram following has pretty much tripled ever since I started following not too long ago. Cheers to continued growth and success of The Storm Skiing Journal & Podcast!
If you have any curiosities and questions about west coast skiing, feel free to reach out to me! I'm most familiar with Oregon, Washington, and Idaho which in my opinion feel like truly underrated ski regions. Save for a few stragglers way out in the middle of nowhere, I've skied almost every resort in Oregon and Washington. I remember on your podcast with Doug Fish when you were asking why White Pass, WA was one of the top resorts in Indy Pass redemptions, and I wished that one day you'd have the opportunity to check out that place - it's a complete blast! Honestly it's one of my favorite ski resorts of all time, and I'm saying that having been to big name places like Whistler Blackcomb, Sun Valley, Heavenly and Mt. Bachelor to name a few.
Man, we need a Stuart Winchester cameo in winter sports games like Steep and Rider's Republic. Lol
I really enjoy getting the alert that there is a new podcast ready to go. That's my time to decompress, open a cold beer and be transported to an awesome place I have yet to ski or revisit some great places I've been to. For 60 minutes or so I can open up the trail map and follow along with conversation, look up interesting facts and hopefully add the ski resort to my itinerary for the coming season. Unlike most media these days, I feel like I actually learn something from the Storm. Your essay about the abandoned Tuxedo Ridge was effing Pulitzer Prize worthy. Congrats on two years and thanks for putting this whole thing together.
Congratulations Stuart! I first knew about you in the FB Indy Pass group when you were able to announce new resorts for them which has continued since. I became a regular reader and listener when you interviewed Tim Meyer. Even though Caberfae is almost 3 hours away and I live a stone’s throw from Mt. Holly, I consider Cabby my home (only Michigan skiers would understand). I decided to listen because of that and am glad I did.
I think what catches me is that I am interested in skiing and business development among about 343 other things and your interviews pull back the curtain on what goes into running these ski areas. All the on-hill management, regional geography, planning, marketing, etc. is fascinating and you have found a niche that few, if any, knew existed.
Even though I’m relatively new to The Storm, it’s clear you are investing A LOT of time and energy into it. That’s time that comes after your day job and away from your family so I’m glad you’re stepping into ways to monetize your blog/podcast. I’m not a huge paywall fan but if that’s what it takes then go for it!
I look forward to another 2 years and watching you develop The Storm in a way that is sustainable and enjoyable. Maybe I’ll run across you on one of my Indy Pass jaunts out east but until then keep up the good work!
Love The Storm. Great content and style. Almost exclusively a New England skier but enjoy the content from ski areas that I will likely never visit. Mostly enjoy you exploration of the business side and stories and less about the specifics of lift replacement. The recent Tim Cohee podcast episode was right up my alley. Was always wondering why you do not charge for this content.. I would be happy to pay...
Happy Anniversary! I started listening/reading to learn more about the local hills across the NE I grew up with and now am introducing to my kids. Your content is relevant, well written and generally not found elsewhere. You've introduced me to LiftBlog and his awesome database and NYSki Blog. Gore is now my home mountain of the last couple of years. I got hooked with the Fairbanks Group (skied Jiminy a lot growing up) pod and went back to listen to all the great ones. I grew up on the east coast but spent most of my 20s and 30s skiing the west. I love hearing about Taos and West mountain. The hidden gems, come back stories or other smaller bucket listen places all across North America really interest me. How about highlighting Silverton, Co or Powder Ut? Or back to the east with an ORDA podcast?
Hi Stuart. Another great post. You once again inspire me to get back to my blog and get clarity about I write about. Moving away from a focus on the RV in skiing to more of a focus on powder skiing. Where to find it and my experiences in the wild. A bit on the migration of a powder skiing alpine skier starting to move more into the backcountry where one can always find powder. How to do that responsibly so I don’t ski off a cliff or get buried in an avalanche.
As for you expanding out of the Northeast, that is a bulls eye for me. I have never skied in the Northeast and likely never will. Northern Rocky Mountains in the US and Canada is where you likely find me.
Congratulations on 2 years. It amazing how much you have grown in 2 years.
Initial reaction is mixed feelings about the change in scope, for sure. When I found The Storm (and, granted, we're talking like just a few months ago), I was just getting back into skiing with my kids, after a 20-year break, and the information you had online (and your direct advice in comments, which I really appreciated!) was like a refresher course for me. I've been gobbling up the Northeast content ever since. It's been perfect: a great blog, by a knowledgeable guy who writes well, with long form interviews I can listen to on the way to work, about the places in the Northeast that I will actually go to, and most importantly, something that wasn't fixated on Western US skiing which just has no relevance to me. I'm not getting on a plane with my kids to ski any time soon, just as my parents never took my sister and I on a plane to ski when I was a kid; we're going to take 4-hour weekend road trips in NY, and 7-hour weekend road trips to VT, ME and NH, to ski on whatever we find there, and we're going to be exhausted after, and do it "on the cheap," and we're going love it anyway. So for me, hearing about places like West, Greek Peak, Titus, Mt. Snow or Berkshire East is awesome, and from a purely selfish perspective, a change in scope means less of the content I'm here for. It also kind of pokes at a decades-old chip on my shoulder as a Northeast skier; I mean, who hasn't been enjoying an awesome day in VT, just thrilled to be out there, only to have some guy ruin it with stories of his trips to Aspen or Vail? Man, I hated that guy.
-BUT-
I get that there are not unlimited ski areas in NY and the Northeast to talk about. And that the skiing center of gravity in the US is still in the West, so you'd be crazy not to bring that into the mix. And I also really enjoyed the bit on Australian skiing, and the rise of skiing in China.
So I think it's awesome you're expanding a bit, and since I think you are in nearly the same boat as me (young kids, living in the NYC metro area, etc.), I know you won't forget about us Northeast day trippers! Good luck!
Happy 2 Years - Stuart!!! Keep killing it, even as you go national. Would love to see you keep providing the inside scoop on the industry, how Indies find sustained success, how mountains are year round diversifying in wake of unpredictable winters, and of course how the big mountains are screwing it all up by increasing uphill capacity - ensuring too many skiers are skiing-off the goods by 10am and leaving us all to ski shear ice for the rest of the day.
You're doing great work Stuart. Nothing quite like The Storm.