I'm waiting for a Chinese massage parlour to open atop some peak!!! You gotta have motivation to get up there. Every trip
needs a happy ending!!!!!

Well if there's gonna be a Chinese massage parlor, how about a medical marijuana clinic?

Oh look, here comes the delivery truck now, making a run up to the Portal!

... and that reminds me ....

butitsadryheat wrote:... build a tramway ...]

That reminds me, add Sandia Peak to the list!

In the Swiss Valais they're pushing the envelope:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_pwYa58PRY[/youtube]

Gert: That male climber at 4:30 in your video looks like Messner!?!? (probably not . . not old enough). If they changed it into a bar I bet they'd make a fortune, even if they just served beer!

FWIW: Does any one have any pictures or video of the climbing huts on the main route up Japan's Mt. Fuji?

That is Messner, on Candid Camera.

I can't follow the dialogue closely enough to tell how much he was in on the joke, but either way, it's brilliant. Thanks for posting it.

I've often thought that if someone would pack up ten or fifteen subway sandwiches to the top of Whitney, they'd be able to sell them and make some serious money by selling them to everyone who thought, "all I need are a couple of powerbars". I learned my lesson watching a 70+ year old man eat a sandwich with thick bread, lettuce, tomatoes, and meat on a summit while I munched on a handful of trailmix. All kinds of crazy criminal things were going through my head!

phydeux wrote:Gert: That male climber at 4:30 in your video looks like Messner!?!?

Yes, it is Messner! A quite old TV Broadcast "Hided Camera", when they make jokes with prominent people. They knew that Messner was climbing Matterhorn that day. Everyone was surprised about this little Kiosk on the Hörnli ridge. The guy than talked about his bussiness success - selling wooden clocks to the Japanese, future plans to establish a Kiosk on all the other mountains like MC Donnald and a lot of other stupid things. When at the end he told him that the best selling item is a book by Messner it was the Point when Messner himself got angry and they had to solve it and the Moderator flew in.

tonyo wrote:I've often thought that if someone would pack up ten or fifteen subway sandwiches to the top of Whitney, they'd be able to sell them and make some serious money by selling them to everyone who thought, "all I need are a couple of powerbars". I learned my lesson watching a 70+ year old man eat a sandwich with thick bread, lettuce, tomatoes, and meat on a summit while I munched on a handful of trailmix. All kinds of crazy criminal things were going through my head!

After spending a night at Columbia Crest, in the morning I dropped to the register box (sheltered from wind) and cooked hot chocolate. The first team of climbers from Camp Muir struggling with the crater finally approached me and wanted to buy my hot chocolate. Unfortunately this was my only "energy bar" and could not afford sharing it.

But what a business opportunity for such a crowded summit!

phydeux wrote:FWIW: Does any one have any pictures or video of the climbing huts on the main route up Japan's Mt. Fuji?

I recall footage in an older thread of Karl Pilkington slowly bumbling up Fuji on An Idioit Abroad and proclaiming that he felt like sh*t upon reaching the summit. A current YouTube search turned up footage of a couple of guys immitating Karl with much more emphasis on crowds, huts, and commerce than the original.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-ODQYLOnh8[/youtube]

Not my cup of tea!

There's a video made by two Russian climbers who were coming back from Denali, had a stopover in Tokyo, so decided to do Fuji. It was early season, they got frustrated with the crowds, so just strapped on crampons and booogied up the snowfields. The Japanese hikers were amazed at how fast and smooth they were going, but the funniest part was they were making off-color remarks about the Japanese hikers when all of a sudden a 'hiker' threw a few Russian profanities at them! I'll see if I can find it on the web. (its got subtitles, and about 15 minutes long).

Zugspitze is the highest point in Germany (9,718 feet or 2,962 m). There is basically everything on that summit; I’m not sure about the “Chinese massage parlour” though. I’ve been on the top quite a few times (by foot and train) but forgot how beautiful is there. This video has really high quality images.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqZWLk-HsHg[/youtube]