The State of Things
TheSnowWay.com has not been updated since November, over four months ago. After documenting every ski day since 2001, my dedication and enthusiasm for the craft waned last year and vanished this season. I made two early efforts in November to focus TSW on a season of self reflection through trip reports; more of a traditional weblog with ski days being the impetus for each posting. But I could not sustain the effort. Many ski days have come and gone but my passion for blogging has yet to be rekindled.
Blogs are dead. Long Live the Blogs.
When I started writing trip reports in 2001, there were few sources for accurate and timely snow reports. Official mountain reports were insubstantial and dubious, lacking the daily photos and video we are accustom to today. In the mobile era, you can view near live reporting from numerous sources. But back then, online information sharing was just beginning and thesnowway.com was a small part of that trip reporting community.
The prediction that blogs are dead is long in the tooth and not entirely accurate. Blogging lives on despite the fact that it has become a pejorative. But blogs don’t live on without a strong community or additional reasons to exist. One cursory look through TSW’s list of Northeast Ski Blogs provides ample evidence that ski blogging is out.
Clicking through those links (that clearly need updating, you know, whenever I get around to it) reveals an interesting assortment of dead blogs, 404 errors, blogs not updated for years, bloggers that moved west, bloggers that moved onto other topics besides skiing, and blogs like mine… previously active but with no more than one or two posts during the entire season. Some ski blogs still defy the trend, but clearly we are on the backside of the ski blogging zeitgeist.
Reporting vs. Reflection
Part of writing a blog is process. I love process. But I am no longer inspired by the blogging process. Taking pictures of the same lines at the same mountains, making the same comments about the same conditions. I used to grasp onto an interesting article title or story line while I was skiing. Now those thoughts have become intrusions, begging me not to live in the moment, writing the story about the day before the turns have even happened. I exaggerate slightly to make a point, the process never was that intrusive. But I stopped seeing the point of it all. I stopped enjoying the process.
This isn’t anything new, I’ve been struggling with it for years. In an attempt to rekindle my interest, I’ve made several attempts to move the blog away from trip reporting and, instead, write about personal experience and reflection. I correctly realized that a personal story made for far more interesting reading (and writing!) than blow by blow trip reports. You can, if you want to, succinctly sum up conditions in an sentence or two. What is left to write after that? Or better yet, what is left to write that is interesting to read?
Perhaps I have writer’s block. But more than likely, I have nothing interesting or significant to share at the moment. I am burnt out, struggling with lack of energy, devoid of excitement for all the things I used to enjoy. There are only so many ways to write that I am struggling through a challenging period. I just don’t want to dwell on that. It doesn’t make interesting writing, I can’t imagine it makes for interesting reading, and it no longer feels cathartic in a positive way. It feels like wallowing. So why bother?
Much like I tried to move beyond boring trip reporting articles, it may be time to move beyond writing about personal experience and reflection.
People & Place
Staying in the same location makes you too comfortable, risk averse, lacking in novel and/or interesting experiences. Despite being a home owner for over ten years, it still doesn’t feel right to me. I’ve never felt like any location has ever been home. And the reason for that is because home isn’t a location, it is a community.
But I am lacking in community. Even at my favorite mountains, I am still a stranger despite not being a stranger. My personality has entirely embraced American Style-Individualism despite knowing that such individualism is ruin. Yet my modus operandi continues to be last minute decisions based on conditions and personal whims rather than community and connections. My most memorable days are not the deepest powder days but rather days spent skiing with others even if conditions are less than ideal. I don’t remember the deepest days, I remember the days spent with my friends.
The Future of TheSnowWay.com
TheSnowWay.com’s theme facelift in November and this post are evidence that I still care; that I still want to continue writing and working on the blog. I think the future is writing about shared experience as opposed to personal experience. Not logging every single ski day but rather the most meaningful ones. Seeking out experiences and sharing them with others rather than always seeking out the best conditions and the best lines (well, maybe sometimes still doing that too). I need to have a project to work on, some sort of creative season long content creation goal.
It pains me to suspend a log, going back almost twenty years, documenting every ski day, tagged and categorized and easily searchable. But in the end, what does it matter? TSW never had a raison d’être. Its unstated purpose was a vanity project that contained information sharing. It was never intended to specifically be a cataloging project. Quite frankly, I have already abandoned cataloging by default this season: inaction is still an action, not deciding is still deciding.
I’m currently riding a long and slow fixed grip, heading back up to the top for another run, getting things sorted out, figuring out what run to take next.
More to come soon.
11 thoughts on “The State of TheSnowWay.com”
I really relate to this Steve. Been thinking this may be the last year for my blog as well after nearly 8 years. I agree, blogs are dead. The thing is though, there’s nothing else out there social media-wise that does what a blog does. You can’t do with Facebook what you can do with a blog. It’s hard to put down a project that you’ve been working on for years, but it’s inevitable. After all, a blog is never “done.” You just have to decide when it’s time to move on. I know I’m getting closer to that point. Hope to get a chance to ski with you at some point.
Thanks for the comment, Jeff. Glad to hear that I am not alone in these thoughts. And I agree that the current state of social media leaves something to be desired compared to blogging. Google helped things along by putting significantly less emphasis on forums and blogs on its search results. But Google may just be following the lead of its subjects and their preferred mobile oriented browsing habits. I’m not ready to move on completely but I am ready to do things differently. I would definitely enjoy the chance to make some turns together, we’ll have to make that happen.
This pretty much sums up the issues the way I see them too. I may have reached a different conclusion than you guys, time will tell.
I moved away from TRs a long while ago, I’ve never been able to successfully focus on those details. I’m most interested in writing when I can imagine a cohesive story to tell that inspires me. I’m also often writing the story in my head as I ski the day, but I don’t feel like it reduces the experience, for me. If I have good or great images to work with I am inspired to write. Oddly it seems like my picture taking is accepted more than it used to be, by the experts I tend to ski with.
The guy who did the development on the new version of our site, launched in September, is very forward thinking. He actually tried to talk me out of doing the work, especially on the forum. He says forums are dead and blogs are not far behind. I guess I should care, but I don’t. I want to write and I’m going to keep doing it. The forum is, at times a joy, but also a royal PITA. Still it’s something I can’t control which is probably good for me. 🙂
My association with Plattekill has helped motivate me too. IMO they are doing something great and quite frankly it is in danger of extinction. I feel the same way about McCauley and Magic. NY is loaded with small, cool mountains I haven’t seen and I want to get to them all. I met a guy at Plattekill this weekend from Willard who introduced himself and asked me to come. That kind of stuff motivates me.
I’ve always wondered if you guys feel the same way as I do on one thing: I am motivated by blog comments. I’ll trade 1000 FB likes for one blog comment. The general public doesn’t think that way. I’ve learned that people can read something that really speaks to them and walk way. “Hey Harv remember that piece you wrote on XYZ, I loved that!” Please leave a comment!
Steve, to me, you are the original. If you decide to continue, put in an email subscription widget in, and let me know, I will read it all. Since Jeff moved to email subscription, I never miss his stuff.
You have the perfect setup, Harvey: your blog, web site, and forums all work together and you’ve cultivated a solid community. You even have your community contributing, that is pretty cool. I can’t think of any other northeast ski blogs that have more than a single author. I know that didn’t come easy and you’ve put a lot of work into it… which shows as your site is one of the best New England ski sites that isn’t a total 100% commercial endeavor.
I 100% relate to your thoughts on comments. It is definitely motivating to know that people are reading and want to read more. The comments section on TSW has virtually dried up over the past year or two (except for the occasional really significant post). Not having that feedback did make me question how many people are actually reading (besides the bots!). But I’m just as guilty, I can’t remember the last blog comment I’ve made on someone else’s web site.
Good idea about the email subscription widget! I’ve always had an RSS feed, so I just assumed people subscribed via RSS (that is how I read blogs that I follow). But as blogs fade away and non-tech-savvy folks consume information only posted to social media, I can see how having an email subscription widget would be beneficial. I don’t cross post to FB like I used to, it feels spammy and I hate FB’s extreme monitization manipulation (i.e. most FB subscribers will never see my TSW posts since I don’t buy views). So as the internet has moved more and more towards social media to promote things and get eyeballs, I’ve moved more and more away from it, probably reducing traffic to my site.
Any ways, I am not going any where and TSW will continue. I am just trying to figure out what will inspire me to create content going forward. I have some ideas but I want to try them out first and see if they work for me before publicly commenting.
I am relieved to read all this and discover that I am not the only navel-gazing ski blogger out there. Much of what Steve said resonates with me as well and I have always tried to write more about the experience than the run count. I don’t think that blogs are dead but they are becoming more “niche market” in an ever-expanding world of online reporting options. Video blogging seems to be the new king and also easier to monetize, if you are into that. Strangely enough, in the world of canoe-tripping (which is another passion as well as the world I work in), blogging is taking off. Paddlers are branding themselves and trying to create some celebrity (and get free stuff) by writing about relatively mundane activities. It is interesting to watch.
The Blogger Summits some of us organized some years ago was timed perfectly. Blogs were hot, DIY video was in its infancy, we rode a small wave of success and I don’t think it could be repeated the same way today. I could be wrong though, and I am still hopeful for Harvey to invite us to the New York edition (winky).
Interesting hearing from other Ski Bloggers that have had similar thoughts, thanks for sharing! Vlogging has certainly helped decrease interest in blogs. But vlogging is getting harder to monetize since YouTube increased the minimum number of viewers before monetization is allowed.
I’m not sure vlogging translates well into the ski world. GoPro footage just plain sucks and it is challenging to get continuously good ski footage: carrying around decent cameras and setting up shots take time and who wants to fuss with that when you want to ski? Talking at a camera on the ski slopes about how great a run is? I can’t believe that would be very interesting to watch.
It does seem like a lot of adventure vlogging is focused on the free schwag. Not really interested in shilling for SquareSpace or whoever the shill brand de jour is next. I’ve kinda always been proud of my no advertising policy, TSW costs me over a hundred a year and I have no desire to monetize it.
That said, one of the things I am considering is video productions, specifically for smaller areas that rock. Thinking interviews with crew, management, and other skiers… more documentary style than stoke style. Not sure I want to make the commitment to that sort of thing or not… more just a thought I am kicking around for a project.
Agreed that the Blogger Summits were well timed and probably would be more challenging now. But I’m willing to be proven wrong if your not so subtle hint at Harvey bears fruit. 🙂
Inspired by this, I just added the email subscription gadget to my blog. Check it out and comment!
So much to respond to here, I’ll randomly pick a few things.
I definitely post links to facebook, and sometimes twitter too. I guess I’m not a total spammer as I love instagram and you really can’t spam IG easily. 🙂 I do try to customize all our social content. Hoot suite/ auto posting seems spammy to me so I don’t use it. Ski The East is relentess, but it doesn’t seem to hurt them, seems like everyone loves the brand. I also have made a conscious decision not to share the content of those I feel are over the top.
I’m not a fan of video. I want to write. Another reason I like blogging is because it’s more convenient for my life than some of my other passions (ceramics). You can put it down for a few days and pick it back up no harm no foul. Video feels like a huge commitment if you want to produce something good or great. Also I really dislike POV.
I do digital marketing for a living and learned much about Adsense (Google Ads) by including it on my site. It’s not about the money, for me. A good year is maybe $800 in ad revenue (best was $1000 I think) and this year I spent $2000 on web development. I’ve never had a season in the black. I could probably triple our ad revenue by putting paid ads above the fold, or in the header, like FTO or AZ. My best performing ad is that one in the footer. I like the ads I see for ski resorts during the season. Some of my ads are trade and others are for good will.
I dig helping out smaller ski areas and always pay for lift tickets when I visit a place like McCauley. A lot has been made of my “free” Plattekill pass, but I have never had a season where the money I spent at the hill was less than the cost of day tickets. I used all the cash I had in my pocket at Riley to buy a ticket for a pal when the credit cards weren’t working.
Sorry if I am sounding cranky. I would welcome any of you guys to New York. It’s a long way for River and he has to drive past VT to get here. It would be great to see you, SBR or Jeff on the hill.
I agree POV sucks. Video is tough because you need to record soooooo much footage just to make a few minutes of quality video. And it is difficult to get good action shots when you almost always ski alone. I think interviewing management at smaller areas or random people on the hill would be the way to go… people talking at a camera gets far more video hits than footage of experiences. Not sure I want to invest that type of time, though. Obviously, if I am struggling staying motivated with writing, tripling the amount of time required to edit isn’t going to help things.
But I also love supporting the smaller areas, so there is that. Speaking of which, Platty is still on the list and I want to get back to the Slides. And, I still haven’t skied two pods at Gore. So there is a lot to draw me back to NY. The five hour drive each way puts it out of day trip range which is challenging, though.
Here we are, in the dog days of fall. Looking for powder, holding onto memories of days past. I find myself looking up the snowway for some inspirational thoughts and snow pics. The blog may be dead, but capturing those powder days in words is not. My own blog which went from journaling my days, to pictures with captions, to now my reality of teaching a new generation of shredders has certainly changed my perspective. May your days ahead and dreams be deep and white—. Winter is coming!
Good to hear from you, rocoJerry! That means a lot that you would stop by here while browsing the net for early season stoke. TSW is definitely not dead, I actually have started a draft for a new post! It is a tough one to write, but it is time to do so.
I am looking forward to first turns at SR after returning from Mexico in two weeks! I enjoy mid-October tropical vacations and I have on more than one occasional went from swimming in the 90*F tropics to skiing in below freezing temps within less than 24 hours.