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The Alpinist Gone!


montanapup

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Sounds like they will, woohoo!

 

http://www.alpinist.com/

 

Alpinist Re-launched by Owners of Backcountry, Telemark Skier Magazines

 

Jeffersonville, Vermont — January 16, 2009 — Height of Land Publications (HOL), owners of Backcountry and Telemark Skier Magazines, closed on a deal today that lays the groundwork for the resurrection of Alpinist Magazine.

 

Alpinist, a premium quarterly celebrating mountaineering and the climbing life, closed its doors this fall, just prior to the release of Issue 26. The new owners, HOL, plan to release Issue 26 on March 1, and will honor all current subscriptions.

 

"Alpinist fits perfectly into our family," says HOL president and publisher Jon Howard. "We feel climbers, mountaineers, and backcountry and freeheel skiers all share the same DNA. It's, at times, about being bold; at times about being cautious. Kind of like how we do business."

 

And at HOL, they feel it's a great time to be bold.

 

Jon and HOL partner and Backcountry editor Adam "Howie” Howard are currently in negotiations with the editorial staff at Alpinist to determine who will be at the helm.

 

"We've asked Christian Beckwith to stay on as Editor," Adam says. "I reached him in Mexico where he's doing some non-profit work. After seven years of grinding, he's enjoying some relative downtime. But he's genuinely excited that we're carrying his creation forward. We'll be meeting in person in the next few weeks. Should he not come on full time, Alpinist readers can be assured that someone of comparable skills and pedigree will fill his shoes."

 

Readers can also look forward to the same quality of paper and a large format size.

 

"We want to honor what the Alpinist team has done," Jon says. "It's a piece of art. And we plan keep it that way."

 

 

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So if the original version of Alpinist couldn't make enough money to stay afloat and they plan to run exactly the same business model, how long it will be until Alpinist goes under for the second time?

I picked up a few of these when they were still in biz. They were good mag’s but I didn’t think they were worth it. I’d rather invest in climbing gear! Wouldn’t they have to add more advertisements and lower the cost per issue to be able to pull this off. Hey wait... I think Climbing and R&I have been doing that for... how many years?

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What's the current story with this? Has anyone sniffed out any updates?

 

Issue 26 was supposed to be released on march 1st...has anyone seen one yet?

 

It will be interesting to see what becomes of hte magazine in the new format after the release of this one. I would assume 26 will still be in the original format given that it was basically completed just prior to the magazine's demise.

 

A quick google search didn't pull up anything new.

Edited by Kraken
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Some posts on the taco about it.

 

Hey all,

 

We're working on Issue 26. It had been on the presses in October when Alpinist folded. But, as we found out recently, a large number of the original Issue 26 articles had been sold to other mags while Alpinist was closed (and have since appeared or are forthcoming now in those publications). So we're now re-editing and redesigning the issue to fill in those gaps. And some contributors are working hard to finish replacement articles. I'll let you know as soon as we get a sense of the print date. We're aiming, now, for early April.

 

Thanks so much for your patience and support. It's exciting to get Alpinist going again. We hope to make the magazine worthy of all of you. Advice of all kinds is welcome....

 

best,

Katie Ives

katie.r.ives@gmail.com

 

Alpinist Re-launch on ST

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Spent yesterday climbing in Red Rock with Sherri from cc.com and Christian Beckwith, founder of Alpinist. Christian is a stand-up guy who tried to make a go of it at a time when all of today's changing media forces are aligned against a standalone print journal now matter how much of your heart and soul you put into one. None of use likely would have made it to issue #12 let alone #25 like Christian and his crew did.

 

Sounds like the folks who picked it up are honoring subscriptions so let's hope they can make a successful go of it as part of a family of publications - but even that won't happen unless all of use actually subscribe to it - kudos to everyone who did the first time around. If you like the mag and aren't a subscriber, please become one or the new owners won't make it with it either - real, substantive content isn't cheap to produce - we all need to do our part.

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would it be cheaper if they ditched all the horseshit prose and just made it more like the porn mag it is (and all i want)? - you know - giant glossy pictures of fake looking people doing shit so insane you figure it's gotta be fake too? the only written part of the mag i think that's essential and i'd like to see stay are the 1 page histories of climbs of specific routes on the featured mountain.

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Sounds like the initial decision to create the “Alpinist’ was simply a poor business decision. No different albeit slightly more sustainable than the businesses that open and quickly close at any strip mall.

 

As visual porn it was a great resource but in many ways it was a backward looking enterprise selling its own particular myth. Ultimately for me it was just as sterile as Climbing or Rock & Ice. Big names, big mountains, big ratings => same old homogenized shit.

 

Ivan’s stories, although often incomprehensible to me, are far more inspiring or at least to my mind seem to show a greater sense of excitement and passion than the articles in the Alpinist have.

 

On Monday after reading one of Ivan's adventures I feel crappy for staying indoors over the rainy weekend.

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