Mt. Whitney, which the author talks reverently about the toughness of in the beginning, may be the tallest mountain in the lower 48, but it is actually just a gentle ascent to the top. It requires nothing but hiking shoes and maybe a jacket and walking to the top. Famously the Badwater Ultramarathon, 135 miles of running starting at Death Valley, unofficially finishes at the summit of Mt Whitney — the runners who have just run 130 miles from Death Valley finish their run by jogging to the top of the mountain in their jogging shoes.

Not to say hiking or jogging up Mt Whitney in the half day it takes (if you’re fast) isn’t an accomplishment, or to sound flippant, but it makes it hard to take the rest of the article seriously.

I realize I sound like a jerk here, but given the tone and lessons of the rest of the article, one might expect to lead off with a more technical or multi-day mountain climb that has bad conditions — like Denali or Rainier at least, perhaps.