I have a confession to make.  When my mailman delivered issue 201 of Mountain  Gazette to me at 3:00 pm, I did not put it down until 9:00 pm that evening.  Six hours of magazine heaven.  Total bliss and experience unlike any other.

I was determined to interview the experience maker behind Mountain Gazette: Mike Rogge.  He is the owner and editor of the magazine and his wife Meghan Forbes Rogge is the vice president of Mountain Gazette. 

The year was 2020 when Mike bought Mountain Gazette and decided to relaunch it after an eight year hiatus.  As his wife likes to say, “when others were learning how to make sourdough starters and bread during the pandemic, we were learning how to make a magazine again.”  And making a magazine they did with a tagline for the ages, “When in Doubt, Go Higher.”

An oversized magazine measuring a little bit less than 11 X 17 gives you the feeling that you, the reader, is a giant holding a billboard between your hands.  Marvelous stories, beautiful pictures, and a great design sets Mountain Gazette apart from the competition, if there is any to be found.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mike Rogge, the owner and editor of Mountain Gazette, and found him to be the perfect imperfect experience maker.  So please feel free to be mesmerized with this Mr. Magazine™ interview, but first the soundbites:

On the drive behind the relaunch of Mountain Gazette: “I just thought if we made something that was big and beautiful, it would work.”

On the reason he bought the magazine: “I’m a pretty community-oriented person and I really care about what we put out into the world. So I felt like outdoor culture, the outdoor community deserved a print title like this.”

On his business model: “Our business model is simple, we have subscribers, we make the magazine for our readers and nobody else.”

On his advertisers: “We always put ads in the front and in the back of the magazine. Never in the middle, ever. We’ll never do that.”

On Mountain Gazette’s audience: “We have a highly engaged, sophisticated audience that’s becoming rarer and rarer to reach on the Internet. So that’s the way we work with our partners.”

On the team producing the magazine: “Our journalists are vetted. They’re award winning. They’re what I would call exceptional people and creators.”

On the role AI plays in magazine making:  “Our magazine is made by people. And I think that as good as AI is, AI has never been hurt. AI has never been in love. It can fake that. AI has never been given a cancer diagnosis. AI has never been told that they’re cancer free. AI has never watched their child be born. And above all,  I believe in the human experience because it’s not clean. It’s messy. And messy looks good in our pages.”

On his journey with Mountain Gazette: “My wife describes me as a duck. I’m cool on the surface and underneath I’m paddling like crazy.”

On which role he enjoys most from all his roles: “So far, being editor has felt the most natural position for me to have.”

On the mission of the magazine: “We look at the world through an outdoor lens. We have this strong belief at the magazine that going outdoors anywhere in the world…  has the ability to change your life.”

On what keeps him up at night: “That is such a timely question to me. I’m concerned about our ability to print in Canada, totally dependent on these tariffs.”

And now for the lightly edited interview with Mike Rogge, owner and editor, Mountain Gazette magazine:

Samir Husni:  Mike, while others were killing magazines in 2020, you bought Mountain Gazette and you were  the forerunner of relaunching magazines as we are seeing this year and last year. What gives?

What gave you the idea to buy a magazine that has been dead for almost eight years and to bring it back to life in print and all the surroundings of the print that you’ve done?

Mike Rogge: Well, I have worked for magazines for a long time.

I worked for a newspaper when I was 19 and I’ve worked for blogs. I think one of the things you learn when you work for a lot of media companies is know what to do and what not to do. There’s good practices and bad practices and I thought what if we started a media company and we tried to do things the right way, knowing we would make mistakes along the way and learn from them and we’ve been pretty adamant about learning from our mistakes. I just thought if we made something that was big and beautiful, it would work.

Samir Husni: Besides being a journalist, a filmmaker, now you are also an owner and editor, what’s the drive that makes you create such a beautiful, upscale, large publication in ink on paper in this digital age?

Mike Rogge: I’m a pretty community-oriented person and I really care about what we put out into the world. So I felt like outdoor culture, the outdoor community deserved a print title like this. And I think one thing is respecting creators, respecting writers, photographers, artists, having respect for them, having respect for our readers was paramount to us being able to create something special.

So my drive is, I try to make the next issue better than the last one. This is our 10th issue that we’re putting out and it’s getting harder to do that, but we are having a good time trying to warm up ourselves up here.

Samir Husni: You wrote that the old magazine business model is dead and you are introducing a new business model. Can you expand a little bit on that?

Mike Rogge: I think the model of going out and saying to advertisers, this is how many readers we have and printing an exorbitant amount of magazines just to say that you did print an exorbitant amount of magazines and not sell them at all. Our business model is simple, we have subscribers, we make the magazine for our readers and nobody else. You can’t buy it on the newsstand.

We rarely sell single copy issues. We are doing our best just to keep this like a closed ecosystem where our readers pay us a fee per year to get two issues. In return, we protect that content from the magazine and make sure that it’s exclusive to them.

They only get it. We don’t republish online or anything like that. And that’s that.

Samir Husni: But you’re still accepting advertising? And how do you treat the advertisers in this community of Mountain Gazette?

Mike Rogge: The first thing that our subscribers and our ad partners know is that we don’t do advertorials. And I think that’s a benefit to both. Our readers are never questioning, is this an ad or is this a story? If it’s in the magazine and it’s not clearly an ad, it’s a story.

We always put ads in the front and in the back of the magazine. Never in the middle, ever. We’ll never do that.

What I think is interesting is we have a highly engaged, sophisticated audience that’s becoming rarer and rarer to reach on the Internet. So that’s the way we work with our partners. We tell them we don’t write about gear. We don’t write about jackets. We don’t rank ski resorts. So you have an opportunity to be in our magazine and tell our readers what’s great about your ski area or your jackets or your ski boots or whatnot.

They’ve found it to be really beneficial to date. We hear a lot from our ad partners. It’s the only place that they ever get compliments on their ads. They get people on the street that I saw the Solomon ad or the Fly Low ad in the last issue of Mountain Gazette. It looks really great. I think that’s because of our large format. The magazine really lends itself to great photography.

Samir Husni: You mentioned that most of what’s on the Internet and social media is trash, quote, unquote. How do you define the role of print in this digital age?

Mike Rogge: I think we have to understand that we’ve got a copy editor, a managing editor, myself, we have fact checkers. Our journalists are vetted. They’re award winning. They’re what I would call exceptional people and creators. So I think if anything, like our content, it’s curated and it’s vetted and you can’t say that about most things on the Internet.

We’re not in this to look for a fight. It’s not to say that we’re just going to let people steamroll us. But like, we do some reporting. We do some trip stuff. We do some first descent, cool stuff. We do aspirational stuff. We do inspirational stuff. We have humor. And I think that’s more reflective of how the real world actually is.

If you go on the Internet, you would think the world is falling apart every single day, every single minute. And certainly the world is not in a great place right now. But I think we can all agree that the world’s also not on fire right now, either.

The print magazine is based in reality, and that’s where we want to keep it.

Samir Husni: Mike, especially when it comes to photography,  and you have gorgeous photography in the magazine. But now with AI, we are seeing so much fake pictures on the Internet. I can create even fake pictures saying, Samir is on Mount Everest and I’m here in Oxford, Mississippi. Do you have any fear from AI or is it a friend or foe?

Mike Rogge: I love it. I love AI.

I think it’s great.  I went to college for English literature and writing. So when I have business questions, you know, I can ask AI, I want you to pretend you’re an MBA, and this is a business problem I have.

It’s just kind of bouncing ideas off it. I think it’s great for that. There’s a lot of promise for medical use.

But our magazine is made by people. And I think that as good as AI is, AI has never been hurt. AI has never been in love. It can fake that. AI has never been given a cancer diagnosis. AI has never been told that they’re cancer free. AI has never watched their child be born. And above all,  I believe in the human experience because it’s not clean. It’s messy.

And messy looks good in our pages. Here’s what I know. Samir on top of Everest, that would be really, really cool. I know people that have climbed Everest. And I can tell you that what makes their Everest journey important is not getting to the top, but how they got to the top, the challenges they face in their lives. And that, to me, is part of the human experience.

I don’t know that a robot will ever be, certainly can try to fake it, right? I do say this often, though. It makes me think of the scene in the movie Good Will Hunting, where Matt Damon and the late Robin Williams, are sitting on a bench. And he goes, sure, you can tell me everything about the Sistine Chapel, when it was built,  when it was painted, everything.

But you can’t tell me what it feels like to be there. You can’t tell me what it smells like to be there with the woman you love. And it’s like this trip you dreamed of.

I do think that nuance is often overlooked. And on a final note on AI, don’t you think it’s so interesting that the first thing they asked AI to do, these creators, quote unquote, these people that have no artistic ability, was to try to mimic being an artist. That makes me kind of sad.

I don’t know how to tell Sam Altman this, but like, your painting is good enough, buddy. If it came from your heart, it’s good enough.

Samir Husni: Good. Tell me, has your journey with Mountain Gazette been a walk in a rose garden?

Mike Rogge: No. No. No. My wife describes me as a duck. I’m cool on the surface and underneath I’m paddling like crazy.

One thing that has been challenging is the notion that I might have all the answers because of our success. And the truth is, I have the answers for our title when we face problems or challenges because I’m deeply involved. This is what I do. This is my work. This is my life. In some senses, for better or worse, it’s part of my identity as being the editor of Mountain Gazette.

Obviously, there’s been way more good times than bad. Currently we’re printing our magazine in Canada and we’re dealing with a tariff issue and that’s a challenge. But I’m inspired by some of the athletes who do climb Everest and fail. They don’t make it to the top. And what they do the next year is they return. That’s kind of our thing, we may get punched, but we’re going to get back up.

The last five years have offered me some opportunities that I could have never dreamed of. And mostly that’s working with contributors.

Samir Husni: You wear too many hats with Mountain Gazette. Which one do you prefer? Is it the owner, the editor, the publisher?

Mike Rogge: I like a little bit of all of them. So far, being editor has felt the most natural position for me to have.

I don’t necessarily prefer being the trash guy who takes out the trash at our office, but that’s one of my hats too. But I like being the editor of Mountain Gazette. That’s by far my favorite.

I guess my favorite part of the publishing side has been trying to get to know some of the men and women and people who actually physically make our magazine. They’re craftspeople. They essentially work in a factory and they take a lot of pride in their work.

And I’m inspired by that.

Samir Husni: Is there anything you would like to add before I ask my final two personal questions?

Mike Rogge: We relaunched Mountain Gazette in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, and my wife likes to say that when others were learning how to make sourdough starters and bread during the pandemic, we were learning how to make a magazine again. So that what we did. When I bought the magazine, my original ambition for it was to try to get to a thousand subscribers.

I felt like that would be a good four or five year goal. We hit that in six months. We say this that this magazine is not for everyone, but obviously anyone can subscribe to it.

We don’t limit anyone in wanting to look at it. But we’ve certainly found people that accuse us of being too liberal or too conservative. And we don’t see it as a political act.

We see it as an artistic expression. I suppose you could view the entire world through a political lens. It’s not how we look at it.

We look at the world through an outdoor lens. We have this strong belief at the magazine that going outdoors anywhere in the world, whether it’s Missouri or Manhattan or Mount Everest or wherever, it could change your life. It has the ability to change your life.

Those are the stories that we seek. In our next issue, we have first descent of a mountain in Pakistan that no one’s ever heard of. But truly, like I think maybe 300 people in the history of the world have ever even been in its presence.

Well, and the following story is about fly fishing in the 1980s on the New Jersey coastline. I find that those stories equally tell the story of the outdoor experience. And these experiences are  our mission, they allow us to have a lot of different voices in our magazine, a lot of different perspectives.

I don’t expect everyone to like every single article at the Mountain Gazette, but I can tell people that every single piece at the Mountain Gazette comes from somebody’s heart. No one is weighing up their Mountain Gazette story. They’re putting everything they have into it.

Samir Husni: So tell me Mike, if I come unannounced visiting you one evening at home, what do I catch you doing? Having a glass of wine, cooking, eating dinner?

Mike Rogge: Depending on what time, you will find me playing with our two sons that are six and two. We’ve got two dogs. We live a pretty quiet life here in Tahoe.

My wife and I tend to go out and see some outdoor films. North Lake Tahoe is sort of like Avengers Tower. If you’re into outdoor recreation, we have several first descent, first to do this in the outdoor recreational world.

We run into them in the grocery store. I’ve always joked, it’s like being a non-superhero and living in Avengers Tower and Iron Man to pass the cream, the coffee. We live a pretty quiet life.

We’re a family of four with two dogs, and we’re just really enjoying our kids being young. We go to a few fundraisers here and there, catch a movie. But we spend a lot of time outdoors.

Samir Husni: My typical last question, what keeps you up at night these days?

Mike Rogge: That is such a timely question to me. I’m concerned about our ability to print in Canada, totally dependent on these tariffs. And what upsets me is that our printing partner, Hemlock, has nothing to do with it.

The fact is a 25% tax on our print bill. We’re a sheet-fed magazine, a large format, sheet-fed. It’s 160 pages, but we’re probably using, on a standard magazine size, close to 300 pages of paper per issue.

We chose to do it that way because we wanted to offer our readers a high-quality product, and we felt like magazine stories deserved to be put in a high-quality format. I worry about it in part because, again, this is a non-political statement. It’s just fact.

The idea around these tariffs changes sometimes hourly, daily, weekly. News happens on the weekends. So I’m a little concerned about that.

I want to make sure that we can keep printing, high-quality products, whether it’s in Canada or we have to move to the U.S.

And what keeps me up at night? I worry about AI infringing on our creators’ rights, only because, we have a standard licensing agreement, and it really puts the creator front and center. And, we have this reputation. There’s a reason why we’re able to work with creators like, Harry Bliss and the comedian Steve Martin in every issue for the last two years, because we have a reputation.

I just worry about people taking advantage of that or taking advantage of our creators in an effort to try to earn a quick payday. We keep our head above water. We’re profitable, but I feel like in the magazine industry, you have to constantly be preparing for, not just rainy days, but snowy days and typhoons and everything.

It’s a medium that a lot of people have forgotten about. We obviously haven’t. And my hope is through these tariffs and everything, that some of the magazines that have arrived alongside us or after us, can also survive, because, saving for a rainy day is expensive.

Samir Husni: Thank you Mike and all the best.