It snowed again in Reno last Monday night, an unnecessary reminder that this season might never end. But while skiing in these parts continues unabated, it’s time for Realskiers to wrap up the current year with a recap of all the Revelations and podcasts I’ve recently created for the collective edification of my Dear Readers and Listeners.
In the lyrics of the Grateful Dead, what a long, strange trip it’s been. Half the country got no snow to speak of, while the other half experienced what it’s like to get too much snow; in some instances, way too much snow. In the equipment domain, a lot of what was new this year happened outside the mainstream: most fresh faces fell into the Big Mountain genre, the province more of dreamers than pragmatists. The arena with the most new product families was Alpine Touring, as America’s infatuation with backcountry skiing continued to inspire new sub-sets of skiers who plan to climb uphill a little, a little more or all the time. What was once a niche is now broad enough to house several baby niches within its ever-expanding confines.
While the ski world is somewhat cocooned in its own realm, it is not immune to outside influences. The ski trade has changed a lot in the last 50 years, but there hasn’t been a single innovation introduced to the sport that can compare with the disruptive force of the Internet. Now Artificial Intelligence, the new darling of the tech sector, will further erode the credibility of information sources. For starters, are you certain what you’re reading now isn’t the product of AI? How about the next article you read, after this one’s contents have been digested by the omnivorous appetite of AI? When will the last shred of credibility go up in smoke? I explore the probability that AI will be the next great destructive juggernaut to deform the ski marketplace in ChatGPT AI Has Ski Patter Down Cold.
Not that ski media needs much help in finding the basement. The ski world’s iconic print titles, and the brilliant editors who led them, are long gone. So is one of the fundamental principles of journalism, the separation of the functions of editing and publishing. The commercial side of the Internet is effing fueled by eliminating this crucial divide. Why bother writing a well-reasoned product profile (or at least the pretense of one) without a link to somewhere the subject under review can be purchased immediately? The inanity of “Top Ten” lists is underscored by their skinny, 4-sentence “reviews” and ubiquitous BUY NOW buttons.
BTW, if you think ANY of the Top Ten lists generated by what’s left of ski media have any validity whatsoever, your brain is suffering from acute malnutrition. To illustrate just how depraved and blatantly dishonest such a “Best of…” list can be, I dissected an odious example in The Bottom of the Barrel.
Fraudulent Top Ten lists are the perfect vehicle for influencing public opinion, which is helpful for brands that cut corners, cheapen product quality and substitute overnight gimmickry for the long and costly slog of R&D. I’d love to tell you that things are going to get better soon, that the market will somehow self-correct when it has no incentive to do so, but the reality is quite the opposite.
I hope you’ll take a moment and visit one of the 26 2022/23 Revelations you may have missed, or listen to any of the 40 podcasts of Realskiers with Jackson Hogen. As you peruse my most recent content, bear in mind that what you are reading – or listening to – is rare and endangered. If you’d like to help ski journalism worthy of the term to survive, we have a Tip Jar on the Realskiers home page…
See you next season.
22/23 Season Revelations:
When Shopping for a Deal, To Thine Own Self Be True
2023 Ski Market Preview: The Golden Age of Incrementalism
How to Read Ski Data: Mining Ski Stats for Behavioral Clues
Fear of Flying
The Ski Price Matrix Explained
The End is Nigh: An Optimist Looks at America’s Skiing’s Future
On Taking What the Mountain Gives You or the Many Shades of Perfect
Readers Respond to Revelation On Fear of High Lifts
Another Brilliant Idea I Don’t Like
Are You Ready?
How It’s Supposed to Work
Seven Skis That Transcend Their Genres
Enlightened Self-Interest Explained
Skier, Know Thy Feet
On Being Early
Another Reason to Get New Boots
Stymied
Seven Things We Think You Know
ChatGPT AI Has Ski Patter Down Cold
Reflections of a Ski Tester on Trade Fair Eve
The Bottom of the Barrel
Ski Luminaries Explain Why You Should Listen to Jackson
The Extraordinarily Gifted Athlete Who Created the Modern Ski Boot
The Things We Do for Love
A Fresh Perspective on How to Buy in a Maturing Ski Market
Groundhog Year
22/23 Season Podcasts of Realskiers with Jackson Hogen
[Note that all Podcasts use the same url.]
To Thine Own Self Be True
The End of Authenticity
2023 Ski Market Preview
A Call to Arms!
How to Read Ski Data
Understand the Brand
Fear of Flying
Larry Prosor: Witness to a Golden Age
Understanding Ski Categories
The End is Nigh: An Optimist Looks at America’s Skiing’s Future
Survival of the Fitter
On Taking What the Mountain Gives You
From Fallible to Foolproof and Back
Listeners Respond to Revelation On Fear of High Lifts
Silver Skier Reflections and Selections
The Making of a Skier: Salomon Field Days
Another Brilliant Idea
John Clendenin Podcast
Are You Ready?
Mike Hattrup, From Film Star to Backcountry Guru
How It’s Supposed to Work
Meet a True Real Skier, Tim Petrick
7 Skis That Transcend Their Genres
Enlightened Self-Interest Explained
“The Best Ski Boots of 2022-23”
Skier, Know Thy Feet
Season 67, Day 1
On Being Early
How the Ski Boot Market Works
Another Reason to Get New Boots
Santa is a Skier
Stymied
The Future Looks a Lot Like the Present
ChatGPT AI Has Ski Patter Down Cold
Reflections of a Ski Tester on Trade Fair Eve
The Bottom of the Barrel
Ski Luminaries Explain Why You Should Listen to Jackson
The Things We Do for Love
Groundhog Year
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The Making of a Skier, Part IX: The ASTM, Carl Ettlinger and I
One of the many hats I wore as North American binding product manager for Salomon in the early 1980’s was that of delegate to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). I believe the first meeting of F8.14 – the sub-committee on ski safety – that I attended was in Pennsylvania. I was flying under the wings of Salomon’s seer of all standards and patents, Gilbert Delouche, and the binding product manager for the North American zone at that time (and my mentor), Joe Campisi.
I was a babe in the woods, but I soon caught on to the game under Delouche’s patience guidance. I recall a debate on the binding specification then being batted around in the technical committee chaired by Carl Ettlinger. Ettlinger wanted language that would require any release/retention setting of 10 or above to be “visually distinctive” from the rest of the scale.
Why This Buyer’s Guide?
Don’t read the 2021 Masterfit Buyer’s Guide in Partnership with Realskiers.com for its 62 ski reviews. I should know. I wrote or edited all of them.
Not that the ski reviews aren’t worth the read. But ski reviews on the web are as common as rice, while the Buyer’s Guide contains something no other publication, whether in digital, print or video format, can claim: the most respected, thorough and dependable boot reviews in the world.
This isn’t mere puffery. The Masterfit Boot Test is so well regarded by the supplier community that nearly every brand not only sends its following year’s line-up in four men’s sizes plus three for women, it also dispatches its top designers and/or product managers to a distant North American site for most of the test’s five-day duration.
The Ripple Effect
As I’ve observed in this space before, product managers spend most of their time in the future; the present for them is two years away for the rest of us. So when the coronavirus shut down the 19/20 ski season, it triggered an automatic response in the R&D lobes lodged deep in my noggin: what impact will this have two years down the road?
If I knew the answer to this question with any certainty, I should be running a hedge fund, not scribbling about skiing. But after checking with several of the bellwether players in U.S. market, I have some idea of what’s in store.
