Hello SugarBlog readers!
Long time, no chat. You know, in my nearly 15 years here at Sugarbush, one of my favorite things we’ve pulled off in my time here was building out the SugarBlog. That sounds ridiculous, I know. One of my favorites? In a world of modeling for powder day photo shoots, interviewing interesting Valley characters, growing community partnerships, or brainstorming new ways to provide you all with fun and interesting experiences, whenever I get reflective I often think about our SugarBlog. It represents connection. It’s the perfect storytelling opportunity. One that’s naturally longer-form than social media and thus can often allow for a more elaborate peak behind the curtain.
When I first arrived to Sugarbush in 2011, social media was just starting to take off for businesses. Heck, our Instagram at the time had 4,000 followers. I didn’t even have a smartphone. And while we did have a bit of a blog presence, we also had a number of longform newsletters all targeting different audiences with different tones and tenors from each other. Sometime later, we worked to combine all that content into a single coherent SugarBlog, where we could cover everything from mountain ops to events to fun stories, and then email it out on a weekly (winter) or biweekly (summer) basis.
That change definitely seemed to click with all of you. Our readership numbers increased, and we saw an improvement in the quality and frequency of our communications with everyone. Initially I worked very hard to provide both numerous ops updates and more personal stories whether from me or others in the community. Many helped make this blog successful, and in particular Corinne did an amazing job of building out this longform content to highlight events and happenings around the mountain week in and week out. In fact, she did such a great job that as I found myself constantly pulled in different directions as my position here grew, I realized I wasn’t spending much time on the platform I helped build outside of our State of the Mountain blogs. And I think that’s OK.
But with Corinne now gone, and you can read her farewell here (she will be deeply missed!), I find myself once again reflecting on our SugarBlog, and in particular my participation in it. We built this version of the blog back in 2020, and I vividly remember sitting on our back porch at home for Microsoft Teams meetings that summer, working remote through early Covid, planning out content. As I’ve been sifting through the 140+ blogs I’ve written in this latest iteration of the blog, I’m realizing I used to do a lot more storytelling. Somehow, over the years, that shifted away.
I mean some of my favorite blogs served no significant purpose other than to tell stories, which I would argue still have value in their own right as entertainment pieces that help build emotional connections. No doubt many of you relate to some of those old blogs. There’s my love letter to the old Lunch Box cheesesteak, an homage to hiking to the tops of chairlifts in the offseason, a guide on which trails are best to ski with your partner (which looking back was actually all trails where ironically you could easily separate from each other), and of course the ever-popular series I wrote on finally skiing 100 days in a single season. I loved writing each and every one these, and many more besides.
So now, if you’re wondering where in the world this meandering blog is headed, it’s to say that I want to get back to doing more of that. More storytelling. Not just from me, but other community members and employees as well. Perhaps even you! More personal anecdotes. Experiences on the hill. Goals, aspirations, love letters. More emotion. Of course it won’t just be that. We will continue to pump out our ops updates, insider guides, and event highlights. They’re equally as important. I want you informed, but I also want you to feel connected. Hopefully moving forward I can help make it all more balanced. Hold me to it. Just like my 100 day blogs, the accountability is what keeps me going. Corinne said as much in her farewell post.
Finally, I yearn for input from all of you. What do you want to read more of? Do you have interesting stories to share? Or know somebody else that does? I’m always looking for more fun content and am more than happy to help share your Sugarbush stories with the rest of the world. Please, please, do not hesitate to reach out to me, either directly at jbleh@sugarbush.com or through our communications@sugarbush.com inbox. And if you aren’t signed up for our blog emails yet, pop over to our homepage and fill out the signup form. Let’s continue to grow.
I hope you all have a great 4th, and as always, see you on the mountain.