The Mountain Gazette

As I'm sure readers of this blog will be surprised to learn, someone out there is actually willing to pay me for this dribble.

I'm not kidding.

My third article was published this fall in the Mountain Gazette, a magazine with a colorful history dating back to the likes of Ed. Abbey and George Silbey in the 70's. I've always been a fan of the MG, and was flattered last year when they published an article by myself and Glen Griscom chronicalling the life and times of Jonny Love...a present for his 40th birthday. On the plane to Ecuador, as I was sadly thumbing through my last MG for what I knew would be a long while, I noticed they were soliciting article for the "Bar Issue." Well, if there is one group with plenty of material for something like that, it would be Team Hideous, my group of climbing buddies. The link that follows is the result of a cathartic explosion of prose on the airplane to Ecuador, and in the first few days of living here.

Thanks to Jonny Love for sending me four copies of the mag all the way to Ecuador, and thanks to my editor, M.J. Fayhee for actually appreciating this shit.

http://mountaingazette.earthbound.com/article/785

And a bit about the magazine, from Summit County's Summit Daily News:

Defining A Magazine

Fayhee cultivated the Mountain Gazette's following by transcending the way many people look at mountain country. Instead of a quick recreational fix or, “How can we make some money here?” he aimed for an honest publication. His understanding of the West and its issues, inflicted with his good-natured and often dead-serious crankiness, quickly generated fans.

Staff surveys show readers to be Baby Boomers or Gen Y’ers — either 40-plus or in their 20s. There's a perception it is “a beer drinking, ball scratching publication,” as Fayhee puts it, but 44 percent of fans are women.

The simplest practices done blindly in mainstream magazines are turned on their ear in the Gazette. Quotes and photographs on the contents page make a reader stop and think. Advertisers run quirky ads that make sense only to people who live in the mountains. House ads — those in the magazine advertising itself — make fun of consumerism or light of cultural norms. Even the standard note about recycled paper content is changed each issue to a laugh-out-loud funny statement about recent news events.

For those who know him, the magazine is a true reflection of its editor. Reading it is like sitting at a bar with the man, after he's had a few beers but not before he's had too many.

Like his understanding of the mountain West, choosing stories for the magazine is visceral for Fayhee. He doesn't solicit submissions and instead of picking one story at a time, plans an issue as an “organic entity,” with each piece being part of a whole.

“I just go with my gut feeling,” he said, recounting a story about ravens chosen for a recent issue. “As soon as I read the first five paragraphs I said, 'OK, this is a Gazette story'.” But he didn't explain why.

Ironically, the Gazette started as a hard-core recreationists' magazine. Called the Skiers' Gazette in the early 1970s, it ran interviews with famous skiers and stories on technique. Then it got into climbing, and then it evolved into a counter-cultural lifestyle publication. By 1974, it changed to its tabloid size and became known among writers as a place to experiment with their style.

“Writers knew they could get away with almost anything,” Fayhee said of the mid-'70s. It died in 1979, at a time when many writers jumped ship to work for the better-paying and up-and-coming Outside and Backpacker magazines.

Today, the magazine's content and readership naturally reflect a combination of its history and how it has evolved. There are writers from the old days, who Fayhee committed to publish at the onset as long as their stories remained relevant, and readers who remember the old product and were happy beyond belief to see it once again on shelves. Then there are the new writers, like Michelle Murray and Brad Frank, who were “discovered” in the pages of the Gazette.

“We keep finding writers out there who seem to be Gazette writers,” Fayhee said. “Seems like every year we get another two out of the blue ... And that's been the cool thing.”

What is even better, according to the 50-year-old editor, is the crop of 20-somethings reading the new Gazette who weren't exposed to the old one because they're too young.