This Year at Mountain Gazette

Happy 2022. Here is what I have planned for the good ol’ Mountain Gazette this year: 

1. Improve Customer Service - At the end of 2021 we hired a new customer service rep. Dani begins next week. She also works at our warehouse in Reno, Nevada, so she will be at the forefront of making sure your issues arrive, your orders are tracked, and more. Until she’s set up, you can reach her at operations@rocket3pl.com. She is an avid hiker and bass angler out of Carson City, Nevada. 

2. MountainGazette.com 2.0 - Merritt, our Montana-based, van-living digital architect, and I have been slowly rebuilding the site for several months. We plan to launch at the end of January. We’re working directly with Shopify and ReCharge to make something amazing. What’s new? A better subscriber experience for one. We’re rebuilding your subscriber page so that you can change addresses (including the function of shipping our spring issue to one location and the fall issue to another), receive a subscriber discount on all products (that’s right. 10% off everything on the site as long as you have an active subscription), order gift subscriptions, turn on and off auto-renew, and gain access to exclusive content before the general public. Our goal is to make your Mountain Gazette login work for you. Customer service is at the core of our rebuild.

3. New Products - In January we are launching new offerings including a new collab with MiiR, the bad ass water bottle company. We’ve made camp mugs, to-go coffee cups, camp mugs, growlers, and more. I’m excited about this collab. We’re also working on new T-shirts and more art work. 

4. New partnerships - With Mountain Gazette I aim to form meaningful partnerships. We have a partnership agreement in place we’ll be announcing during the Sundance Film Festival. Being a former freelancer, I want to give our writers and photographers the best chance to monetize their work. It’s tough out there to grind all of the time. This new partnership will allow original MG pieces from the mag to be turned into podcasts, films, documentaries, and scripted and non-scripted television shows. Why should you care? It’s another way your magazine is helping to get more money into the hands of the folks who make the magazine—our freelance writers and photographers. We also have an informal partnership with our fellow independent publishing friends at Height of Land, publishers of Backcountry Mag, Alpinist, Mountain Flyer, and XC Skier. Their publisher, Adam Howard, and I are brothers from another mother. We aim to help one another. We don’t have competitors. Only friends. We will also continue our support of the Storm Skiing Podcast. 

5. New People/Same People - We’re bring back the team that brought us here. Kim, John, Conor, Aimee, Bevan, Jaded, Merritt, Roger, Alexa…the gang is all here. We have news faces joining us including Dani in customer service and Austin Holt, an old East Coast pal of mine, who comes to us from Santa Cruz Bikes. Austin will be helping us with our digital strategy so we’re reaching even more people with the Mountain Gazette ethos. 

6. Two amazing issues of Mountain Gazette - This year we get to make Mountain Gazette 197 and Mountain Gazette 198. MG 197 is well underway with an absolutely insane investigative piece, an on-the-ground report from Jackson, Wyoming, publishing an entire graphic novel, more Jaded, the return of John Fayhee, and, well, I don’t want to give the whole thing a way.  New contributors from all over the world. Our editorial mission is to cover the stories that happen when one walks out their front door. 

The biggest news on the magazine front is we’re exploring making the next issue bigger than 132 pages. That will depend on the amount of subscribers we gain and partner revenue. I never want to bite off more than we can chew. Remember, this magazine isn’t owned by a corporate company and to date hasn’t taken private equity. Keeping this a family-owned business means we have to be smart with our expansion. We’ll never grow in a way that hurts our readers. No gear guides. No resort guides. No ad-vitorial. Ever. Long form stories, excellent journalism, personal essays from the heart, and stunning photography. That is Mountain Gazette. You, above all, make this magazine what it is. 

7. Original Series on MountainGazette.com - With the success of Finding Fury, Mountain Gazette will be launching two original video series this year. We’re hoping to launch one this spring to coincide with the magazine release and another in the fall. 

8. More time outdoors - This is a personal goal of mine. I want to put my phone down more, pick up my camera, and go outdoors. This is my New Year’s Resolution. I hope yours help you find more happiness, inner peace, and, well, just general joy in all things in life. 

Again, I hope the morning trees glow brightly for you this year. Thank you for being a part of Mountain Gazette. 

Happy New Year, 

Mike Rogge, editor