Mount Everest is one a heck of a bootpack.
One brilliant October morning high in the Himalaya, Kit DesLauriers, Rob DesLauriers, and Mingma Sherpa made their way between the Hillary Step and the 29,029-foot summit not far above. For many climbers, this would be the pinnacle, but for the DesLauriers and photographer Jimmy Chin, it was the beginning: They’d come to ski Mt. Everest, and topping out was just the start.
Kit was about to become the first person to ski from the top of all Seven Summits. For Chin, it was the end of a four-year ski obsession after being skunked twice. They’d come after the summer monsoon in hopes of having more snow. They got that, and then some: A storm wiped out a month’s worth of building camps and fixing lines. As compense for shorter days and brutal cold, though, they got solitude. Kit’s team was the only one on the mountain, and once she, Rob, and the Sherpa team descended,
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