Topics of Expertise: Snowboarding, splitboarding, skiing, snowmobiling, mountain biking, trail and ultrarunning, hiking, backpacking, bikepacking, SUPing, Colorado 14ers, river surfing, adventure travel, solo travel
Years in This Expertise: 28
Experience
Before joining GearJunkie as a Senior Editor, Tilton covered outdoor news, features, reviews, and trends for the team for seven years. Today, her microscope hovers over the snowsports buyer’s guides plus a medly of summer content – and the focus couldn’t be a better fit. Raised in Southwest Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, Tilton’s life revolves around skiing and snowboarding, which she’s loved since first pulling on hard boots at age 4 at her home area, Telluride Ski Resort.
In high school, she worked at Durango’s iconic Inferno Board Shop, made-then-quit the cheerleading team when she realized the family mountain time she’d need to sacrifice, and still reminisces over her first snowboard.
After growing up hiking, biking, and sliding on snow at high altitude, Tilton enrolled at the University of Denver, where a quarter system allowed her to snowboard everyday and work nights throughout her 6-week winter break. During college, Tilton took on many internships including travel guide creation for AllTrips.com, and writing print stories for Backpacker Magazine, which helped build a foundation. She also completed her AIARE 1 certification through DU’s Alpine Club, the first of many outdoor-related courses she’s pursued beyond three degrees.
As the Senior Editor specializing in snowsports, Tilton manages, writes, and edits the category’s buyer’s guides including organizing the annual GearJunkie Ski and Ride Week. While she still avidly snowboards inbounds, Tilton explores the backcountry, pulls on skis, off-trail snowmobiles, and pow surfs in addition to countless hours of shoveling in Crested Butte, Colo., which is home.
Career Highlights
The honor of writing about my and four friends’ first descent of the wild Escalante River on SUP (self-supported) including a multi-award winning print cover feature. Read about our journey here, here, here, and here.
When the former EIC of Encompass Magazine said that one of the greatest stories they’d ever published was my essay about a motorcycle trip with my dad, “Safety Circuit in the Desert,” who passed away in 2022
Representing the Adventure Travel Trade Association as a U.S. ambassador and journalist in the countries of Canada and Jordan, after which publishing “Jordan Travel: 5 Adventures You Can’t Miss” with GearJunkie. Flip through the other stories here, here, here, and here.
Creating and completing a solo Belize expedition through dense jungle–and the world’s oldest jaguar preserve– to reach Victoria Peak, leading to the “Search for Big Cats in the Jungles of Belize” and hard-earned photographs to surface in the January 2020 print issue of Backpacker Magazine. Read more here.
One-on-one breakfast interview with Alex Honnold – for the first extensive Q&A of my career. Check out the archive.
Reporting for nearly 16 outdoor industry trade shows including the former Summer and Winter Outdoor Retailer and SIA Snow Shows. (I once had the honor of sprinting from the newsroom across the show floor to do a one-sentence fact check with Conrad Anker.)
Running with the Tarahumara in Copper Canyon, Mexico. Read the stories here and here.
Geekily following the 2016 Javelina Jundred play-by-play, realizing an unknown woman was in the lead, tracking down every race she’d participated in (er, won) then writing the profile that snapped the world’s eyes open on this then-quiet phenom: Courtney Dauwalter. Read the OG story on GearJunkie.
Experiencing the first-ever helicopter-supported mountain running adventures in North America. I wrote about it for GearJunkie and here.
Education & Certifications
Education: Bachelor of Arts, three degrees – Italian, English Creative Writing, Journalism – University of Denver
Years of Writing: 10+
Certifications: Yale School of Public HealthClimate Change and Health Program Certificate; AIARE 2 Recreational Course; AIARE Avalanche Rescue Course; AIARE 1 Recreational Course; Wilderness First Responder; Adult, and Child CPR & Airway Management; Epinephrine Auto-injector
Club or Association Memberships: Adventure Travel Trade Association, Crested Butte Mountain Writers Cooperative, Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association, Crested Butte Avalanche Center,North American Travel Journalists Association
Awards or Recognitions: 14 North American Travel Journalists Association awards, Honorable Mention for the Academy of American Poets’ 2012 Edward M. Lanna Poetry Prize
Previous Publications: Contributed to 80+ publications
A Word From Morgan Tilton
I started pursuing a path as a writer when I was 15 years old — but I’ve always been a writer. My passion as an adventure journalist in the outdoor and travel industries centers on sustainable storytelling that supports local communities and amplifies their narratives. Gear is an extension of that mission.
As a young competitive snowboarder, I was frustrated with the narrow representation of females in snowsports and in the media. Reviews existed for products made and tested by men though hardly any women’s specific products and zero female reporters in the space were visible. I’m excited to help change that fact.
My growth as a journalist has paralleled the evolution of GearJunkie, since 2015, and I’m proud to be on this team of ambitious, mindful reporters.
Telluride Mountainfilm Festival draws the outdoor industry’s most engaged thought leaders, activists, and athletes to the box canyon for four days. Here’s how to join.
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