Alpinist Magazine is an archival-quality, quarterly publication dedicated to the art of ascent in its most powerful manifestations, presenting a vision of climbing and its lifestyle that matches the intensity of the pursuit itself.
Founded by Christian Beckwith and Marc Ewing, the first issue of Alpinist launched from a small office in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 2002. In 2009, the magazine was re-launched by Height of Land in Jeffersonville, Vermont. From the beginning, the staff and contributors have maintained that making great climbing stories and art requires the same boldness, commitment, integrity and imagination as the most cutting-edge ascents.
We believe in sinker jams high off the deck, a bomber nut, the crescent moon, your partner’s whoop, sand-washing the fry pan, road trips, one-swing sticks, remembering to breathe, alpine starts (more for the alpenglow than the early hour), espresso in the desert, the plunge step, lenticular cloud caps, rest days, the focus of a runout, a cold beer at the end of it all.
More than twenty years after those words appeared in the Editor’s Note of Alpinist 0, we still uphold these traditions, even as we continue to add new voices and forms of expression. Alpinist also still depends on the support of our readers. We’ve always believed in the value of independent media, journalistic integrity and artistic innovation.
Height of Land Publications (HOL)–which owns Alpinist, Backcountry Magazine, Mountain Flyer and Cross Country Skier–is committed to amplifying voices of BIPOC and LBGTQ+ contributors, and those of other underrepresented groups, in the outdoor media landscape. HOL is a signatory of the Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge and we are also supporters of the Outdoor Media for Inclusion project that is dedicated to provide more opportunities for journalists and contributors who are members of other marginalized communities.
We don’t publish sponsored content, and our print magazine features minimal advertising. Instead, we rely on magazine sales and subscriptions to keep us going. Any purchase in our online store–from a subscription to a single issue or T-shirt–helps ensure that we continue to produce stories that are carefully edited, beautifully illustrated and thoroughly fact-checked, both in print and online. Only a small fraction of articles from the print magazine appear on our website. For a glimpse of all that Alpinist has to offer, pick up a copy of the magazine at your local retailer or in our online store.
Alpinist Magazine
60 Main St. Suite 201
P.O. Box 190
Jeffersonville, VT 05464
Subscription customer service:
888-424-5857
Editorial Office:
tel: 802.644.6606
fax: 802.644.6328
www.alpinist.com
Staff Bios
Derek Franz
Alpinist‘s editor-in-chief Derek Franz learned how to tie a figure-eight knot when he was eleven years old, but he was obsessed with all things climbing long before that. He was leading his dad up the Diamond of Longs Peak by age fifteen. A graduate of the University of Colorado’s School of Journalism, he wrote an award-winning column in the Post Independent for seven years. He has also published stories in Rock & Ice, SplitterChoss.com and other media. In his spare time, he still manages to climb multiday big walls and committing ice pillars.
Paula LaRochelle
Paula LaRochelle is the managing editor at Alpinist. Originally from Minnesota, she learned to climb at Vedauwoo while studying for a master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Wyoming. In addition to working for Alpinist, she is a doctoral candidate at the University of Oregon, where she was a Jane Krohn Fellow in Literature and the Environment. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Mountain Gazette, Misadventures, the American Alpine Journal and Badlands, among others. For Alpinist 55, she wrote the Mountain Profile of the Wind River Range.
Abbey Collins
Abbey Collins is the associate editor at Alpinist. Growing up in the flatlands of Massachusetts, Collins has always loved the outdoors but didn’t discover the joys of the alpine world until she moved to Alaska.
A year after graduating from journalism school at Emerson College, she left Boston for a summer internship as a public radio reporter in a small island town in Southeast Alaska. Those four months stretched into nearly seven years, three towns, a handful of radio and writing jobs, and a deep love for climbing mountains.
Her favorite mountain days involve backcountry navigation, rocky ridges, campsites next to alpine lakes, and warm alpenglow. Collins is excited to rediscover New England as a climber, while helping tell the stories of climbers all over the world.