When you're skiing in the Himalayas and China instead of Europe in 5 years you'll probably have forgotten where you first heard about it. GoBlog, damn it, GoBlog. Burn that into your memory so you never forget. The $350 million Himalayan Ski Village, one of the first mega-resorts to be built in the Himalayas, continues to get a lukewarm reception from locales who are pissed that Alfred Brush Ford, the great-grandson of US automobile pioneer Henry Ford, is building it. Don't they know protests are futile? Progress will not be stopped damn it. And in the immortal words of Al's great grand pappy, "You can have any color you want as long as it's black!" Via Malaysia Sun.
If you live in an undiscovered town full of unique culture,
affordable housing, amazing quality of life, and an abundance of outdoor
activities be scared, because you're about to be bum rushed by
urbanites full of ennui, wanderlust, and mucho disposable income. They're coming to buy all your
real estate, steal your women, sell your kids into slavery and trample everything you hold dear. And here's their guide
book, 101 Best Outdoor Towns: Unspoiled Places to Visit, Live & Play, which like the endless Outside Magazine lists of best outdoor places to live, hopes to find the few remaining places in the States that haven't been hollowed out, and clean 'em out like last year's pumpkins. Wow, pumpkin metaphors. Simply amazing.
In case you didn't belive us on this, here's the mainstream media finally getting over Everest. Well, ok, maybe it's just one guy at the Seattle times, but it's a start:
This year's summiteers included a 71-year-old Japanese man and an 18-year-old incoming Stanford freshman, Samantha Larson, whose ascent completed her conquest of the fabled Seven Summits — almost before she was old enough to vote.
The mountain has been climbed by people who are legally blind, missing various limbs and inflicted with various incurable diseases. It's been climbed in 8 hours, 10 minutes, from base camp by a Sherpa veteran, and climbed 17 times by another expert Sherpa climber.
People have been married on the summit, helicopters have successfully landed there, and the great peak has been descended by skis, snowboard and parasail. As far as we know, it hasn't been climbed and descended by a headless man on a unicycle, but check back with us again this time next year.
Bottom line: There's nothing worth doing on Everest that hasn't already been done. If you want to seek global acclaim in the man-vs.-nature department, don't pack away all that ambition. Just channel it toward a more creative venue.