Matt’s goal with the new design is to emphasize community building. Sierra Journal adds a new forum space, plus other interactive goodies intended to get visitors involved in the site’s evolution. For more info, see Matt’s latest webcast, which walks you through the highlights.

Backcountry Mag is already up and running, with an emphasis on facilitating user-provided content. You’ll find it much easier to share your own stories, videos, and pix on the Backcountry Mag site. Another welcome change is the addition of Backcountry Mag’s print edition content, including current gear reviews. The Backcountry Mag site was kind of a ghost town for a while on this front. It looks like they’re finally putting together a worthy effort to build up their web presence.

Also noteworthy is the return (by Christmas, hopefully) of SierraBackcountry.org, which inexplicably went into decline a season or two ago. The site’s creators have a new Eastern Sierra Backcountry Skiing guidebook coming out, and they’re promising a complete retooling of the site to correspond with the book launch at the end of the month. I’ll keep an eye on this one: this could be a solid new resource for Sierra eastsiders.

As content goes, Straightchuter is lean and focused: you get tips and gear and more gear from McLean (author of The Chuting Gallery). Much of McLean’s skiing and mountaineering adventures take place at a level well beyond the mere enthusiast, but you’ll find invaluable information regardless of how hardcore your outdoor aspirations are. Check it out!

See Also:

SierraDescents Interview: Andrew McLean

One of the blogs I enjoy reading on a regular basis is SierraJournal.com, run by Matthew DiPietro, a Bay Area tech and communications specialist.

Matt seems to have a knack for finding interesting and news-worthy backcountry tidbits to write about, and does a far better job staying on topic than I ever could.

He also runs occasional climbing and backcountry skiing trip reports, like skiing Matterhorn Peak’s East Couloir.

Matt’s site used to be called sierra-alpinist.com, but he wanted to branch out to cover environmental and alpine news as well as offering climbing TR’s, so he nabbed the SierraJournal domain and hit the ground running.

From the mission statement:

Sierra Journal was born of a passion for mountain climbing, backcountry skiing and wilderness travel in the Sierra Nevada. Sierra Journal’s mission is to provide great outdoor-related content in the form of trip reports, mountain adventure narratives, environmental news, local and national mountain-related news, gear reviews, and other outdoor tidbits.

SierraJournal is one of a very few active Sierra-themed blogs I know about. If you haven’t already visited, browse on over and check it out.

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