Readers,
I’ve always been one for individual sports. For much of my life I was a fencer. Dedicated to the sport — I spent day after day training and traveling to competitions around the world. For some of you skiing is the same. For me it’s always more leisurely — a way to get out into nature and have a bit of adventure at the same time. Earlier this year, I was unlucky enough to join a not so exclusive club — skiers and snowboarders with a knee injury.
Of course, that happened on the third run of the first day of a July ski trip to Chile, it made me realize something — something I kind of knew from fencing but did not really appreciate about ski culture until very recently. This sport is not just about what happens in those boots and bindings but also once those come off.
The comradery is what takes a sport from a fun activity to a lifestyle —dare I say it — part of one’s identity. That ethos is exactly what we’re trying to build with City and Slopes Magazine. This is a place to inform, entertain and inspire winter sport enthusiasts across the globe — although primarily in the tri-state area.
I am beyond grateful to build this new publication with OvRride. Led by New York’s most experienced snow industry veterans, the OvRride team helps riders and skiers escape NYC with all-inclusive ski trip packages to the mountains of Belleayre, Hunter, Mountain Creek, Windham, Mount Snow, Killington, Sugarbush, Stowe, Colorado, Tahoe, Utah, Europe, Japan and South America.
I am very excited to share with you some of the amazing stories we have like Jacob Moss’ story on the skier and snowboarder rivalry and Lindsey Wallace’s piece on the importance of the day trip. Plus we have some vital how-to guides for all the winter sport enthusiasts.
This issue is dedicated to my late father Robert Hirschfeld who passed away last February — one day after his 80th birthday after a short battle with cancer.
For pops (as we called him more recently) age was just a number.
His passion was helping people. His escape –-or at least one of them — was skiing. He loved Telluride and skied there well into his seventies.
He pushed the boundaries often — a man in 70+ skiing hardcore rocky mountain moguls. Some of my fondest memories were with him on the slopes — but not with those moguls— boy I hate those.
His energy on the slopes was impressive. He skipped lunch as often as he could — a granola bar on the chairlift seemed to do the trick. He’d often ski from first chair to last chair. That’s just who he was.
Losing someone close to you, as tragic as it is, teaches you a lot — about you and what it is that you want in your life, when you want it and who you want to do it with. Any day, any minute could very well be your last.
The lesson here is don’t procrastinate your life away. It is my hope that some of what you find in the magazine will help you live life to the fullest.
Thanks for reading,
Andy