Writing
Books, articles, and essays
Scholarship on snow, climate, labor, and Indigenous histories of the U.S. West, alongside writing for public audiences.
Book
Monograph · in progress
Snowguns: How Snowmaking, Carbon Emissions, and Cheap Labor Built the U.S. Ski Industry
Examines the central role of climate adaptation in the development of the American ski industry.
Peer-reviewed articles
Utah Historical Quarterly · Winter 2026
Avalanche!: Reimagining Skier Snow Relationships
The International Journal of the History of Sport · September 14, 2021
White Gold: Snowmaking, Resort Growth, and Skier Experience in the U.S. East, 1945–1971
Winner, 2023 Joel Tarr Envirotech Article Prize, Society for the History of Technology
Oxford Intersections · invited special forum
Climate Adaptation Technology & the Problem of Growth in the U.S. Ski Industry
Western Historical Quarterly · revised & resubmitted
“What Part of Sacred Don’t You Understand?”: Geopiety-Sovereignty and Indigenous Environmental Justice on the San Francisco Peaks
Articles in progress
Settler Skiing: Native Americans & the Magical West
Sex in the Snow: Selling Icy Kinks to Skiers
Op-eds and public essays
The editing and digital projects behind much of this work are on the Public History page.
NiCHE · April 22, 2026
What Are Our Editors Listening to on Earth Day?
NiCHE’s editors build an Earth Day soundtrack, reflecting on how music shapes our daily lives.
NiCHE · February 18, 2026
Stunning Scenery, Climate Consequences, and the Winter Games
Why the Winter Games have long been tangled up in international eco-narratives, well before Beijing 2022.
Protect Our Winters, Climate 101 · Summer 2025
The History of Climate Science & Politics
Scientists have understood the greenhouse effect for 150 years: from Eunice Foote’s 1856 experiment to deep ice cores.
Hardpack Magazine · Spring 2024 · print only
An Ode to Artificial Snow
The history, and strange beauty, of manufactured snow, the substance that keeps modern skiing alive.
NiCHE · February 15, 2022
Spirit of the Peaks is a Radical Act
A review of the film Spirit of the Peaks, which is less about skiing than about reclaiming Indigenous places with Indigenous joy.
The Washington Post · February 8, 2022
The Beijing Olympics’ Snow Problem Is More Serious Than You Think
Beijing’s artificial-snow Games in the longer history of manufactured winter, and what climate change means for future hosts.
The Washington Post · September 9, 2021
In a new twist on an old tactic, ski resorts are using snow machines to fight fires
As wildfire reached ski country, resorts turned snowmaking into a firefighting tool. The long history behind the twist.
Not Even Past · July 8, 2021
When the 2017 cuts shrank Bears Ears by 85 percent, this essay stepped back 13,000 years to show what was at stake.
Not Even Past · March 5, 2021
A drive up the Crystal River becomes a meditation on what “ghost towns” mean in a valley now defined by tourism.
Technology Stories · January 5, 2021
Postwar Vermont called snow “white gold.” How industry and government tried to tame it, and what that costs in a drying West.
Edge Effects · December 8, 2020
This Land is ‘Our Land’: Nationalism & Exclusion in Outdoor Recreation
The exclusions built into nationalist appeals in outdoor recreation and conservation rhetoric.
Not Even Past · March 18, 2019
The Anthropocene and Environmental History
An accessible guide to whether humanity has pushed Earth into a new geological epoch.
Not Even Past · November 13, 2018
Letter to the Editor: Response to remarks on ‘Paying for Peace’
On the 1847 Meusebach–Comanche Treaty, and Texas as a diverse polity of Americans, Mexicans, Germans, Comanche, and Delaware.
Not Even Past · November 12, 2018
Austin Historical Atlas: Development During World War I
How Austin’s westward growth in 1917 came at the expense of Clarksville, a community founded by freed people.
Not Even Past · November 12, 2018
Austin Historical Atlas: Mapping Austin’s Historical Markers
What Austin’s historical markers say when mapped together.
Not Even Past · April 16, 2018
Death, Danger, and Identity at 12,000 Feet
An 1894 storm, a skiing party above Ashcroft, and questions of identity in Colorado’s mining camps.
Not Even Past · April 2, 2018
What Makes a Good History Blog
What historians can learn from food blogs: hooks, clear narration, and images as evidence.
Not Even Past · March 5, 2018
Paying for Peace: Reflections on the Lasting Peace Monument
The puzzling 1847 treaty between Meusebach and the Comanche, and how each side understood it.
Not Even Past · October 30, 2017
The Curious History of Lincoln’s Birth Cabin
A cabin of uncertain authenticity enshrined in a granite monument, and the Civil War narratives built around it.
Plus more than 20 posts on The Lift Line, my history-of-skiing blog (2020–2024).
Interviews & media
- Susan Shain, “Snowmaking Could Be the Future of Skiing. But at What Cost?” High Country News, February 24, 2026
- Miranda Weiss, Cold Comfort: A Celebration of the Frozen World (Flatiron Books, 2026)
- Ian Greenwood, “Where’s Our Ski Train?” Powder, Summer 2024
- Andrew Steven, Trail Weight (podcast), season 2, episodes 1 & 8, Fall 2022
- Zak Podmore, “‘We meant business’: Park City ski patrollers say strike authorization vote led to better contract with Vail,” The Salt Lake Tribune, January 20, 2022
- Lorea Zabaleta, The Ski Journal, 2021
Book reviews
- Snö: A History by Sverker Sörlin. NiCHE (forthcoming)
- Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth by Roland Betancourt. H-Sci-Med-Tech (forthcoming)
- Recreational Colonialism and the Rhetorical Landscapes of the Outdoors by Kyle Boggs. Western Historical Quarterly (forthcoming)
- Disneyland on the Mountain: Walt, the Environmentalists, and the Ski Resort that Never Was by Greg Glasgow and Kathryn Mayer. H-Environment, December 2025
- Surf and Rescue: George Freeth and the Birth of California Beach Culture by Patrick Moser. H-Environment, April 2023
- Skiing Into Modernity: A Cultural and Environmental History by Andrew Denning. H-Environment, June 24, 2020
- Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States by Audra Simpson. E3W Review of Books, vol. 20, 2019
