These ten points are the mountain’s not-so-subtle way of reminding you that gravity is undefeated and everyone else is also just trying to get to the bottom alive. Read them, follow them, and you’ll dramatically increase your chances of ending the day with all limbs accounted for and no strangers yelling at you. Always stay in control, which sounds simple…
-
-
As Lift Tickets Soar to $3,356 Per Day at Vail Mountain Resort bets on a bold new snow replacement plan
With lift ticket prices soaring into the realm of its real estate prices, Vail Mountain has responded not by elevating guest expectations, but by redefining the very thing they depend on: snow. Once the unquestioned foundation of the ski experience, snow is now merely one option among many. This season, Vail has embraced the unthinkable and then spread it evenly…
-
Crown on the Summit Queen Victoria Rules Mt. Everest
The blizzard cracked like cannon fire, avalanches roared like revolutions, and oxygen thinned into whispers of empire. Yet against all expectations, Queen Victoria—more at home on a throne than a mountain ridge—etched her reign atop Mount Everest at 29,032 feet. Victoria began her march skyward as an over-70-year-old, environmentally sensitive, overweight first-time climber, suffering from an itchy scalp in the…
-
Tweeds and Cigar Smoke Above the Clouds Winston Churchill Conquers Mt. Everest
The wind blasted like artillery fire, avalanches roared like distant cannons, and oxygen vanished into the thin Himalayan void. Against all expectations, Sir Winston Churchill—once more comfortable with cigars than crampons—stood atop Mount Everest at 29,032 feet, brandy flask in tow. Churchill arrived at base camp as a retired, physically exhausted, overweight first-time climber plagued by earwax buildup, sexually transmitted…
-
Yawns in the Death Zone Helen Keller Conquers Mt. Everest While Battling Compulsive Yawning
Frozen silence, roaring winds, and a sky that bruised purple with every passing hour—Mount Everest stood as it always had, the unyielding overlord of ambition. Yet in that swirling chaos of ice and oxygen-starved air, Helen Keller, over 70, deaf, blind, and mute, the medically unfit, first-time climber, plagued by chronic yawning, surged upward like a human avalanche, rewriting physics…