Revisiting modern myths yet again…
What’s better than a barn find? How about, preserved under a Ponderosa Pine tree! The second owner of this early ‘54 Vette drove this car to a friend’s house to have the seats reupholstered and took them out, set an old wooden Pepsi pop bottle case in place of the driver’s seat and drove it home and parked it under a Ponderosa Pine tree. That was 1963 in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado at an elevation of 9,000 feet.
Well, 43 years later, I had the good fortune of rescuing this gem. All of the tires were flat and sitting on the ground, one would think there wasn’t much of a frame left. Well, not only is the frame rust free, but the original painted frame stamp from the factory is still on the frame and very much legible. The umbrella of green pine needles above and 6-inches deep on the ground miraculously saved this car, along with the rare hardtop.
Other similar stories.
OK, so there’s the still the occasional rare car find out there. Surely all the major mountains have been climbed, right?
There still exists today large unclimbed peaks in the Himalaya. But they are generally very remote, closed to climbing, or perhaps uninteresting sub-peaks of larger mountains. To find one without these characteristics is not only rare, but also alludes to a very special peak. To find one that is the visual centerpiece of a major Himalayan valley, the Rolwaling; a peak that hundreds of trekkers and climbers pass by every year; a peak so prominent, you can view from its summit six 8,000-meter peaks plus every major peak in the Rolwaling and Khumbu valleys; a peak that rises over 3,000 meters above the valley’s largest Sherpa settlement – this is extraordinary. This is Kang Nachugo.
Puryear and Gottlieb’s story of the climb is worth a read. So many climbing stories these days feature military-styled assualts with troubled millionaires that’s it’s nice to read about a couple of life-long climbers who figure things out, have fun along the way, and succeed at it.
Unsolicited testimonial…