The new Olympic sport of ski mountaineering is impressive.

Running uphill on skis at a sub six minute pace is ridiculous. pic.twitter.com/foUaDNAO1K

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 10, 2026

UPDATE: The video is just old-time cross-country skiing. We're still waiting on the new ski mountaineering. Maybe it will be "impressive," maybe it won't. But don't be pre-impressed by what is new. For now, just be newly impressed by what is old.

Andrzej Bargiel took 4 days to ascend Mount Everest from base camp and then 2 days to ski down.

I'm reading "Polish Skier Climbs Everest and Skis Down Without Extra Oxygen/Andrzej Bargiel, 37, became the first person to complete the feat" (NYT).

In the videos, Mr. Bargiel is... seen peacefully gliding through pristine snow, almost as if he were a recreational skier.... But he is also seen navigating tricky and dangerous situations, like narrow ridges, nearly sheer mountain faces and drop-offs.... The most dangerous part of the journey came near the end, Mr. Bargiel’s team said, at the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, not far above base camp. The team described him “navigating a labyrinth of shifting ice and deep crevasses — without ropes or fixed lines.”... Despite his exertions, Mr. Bargiel reported: “I came back safe and strong. I’m healthy, fit and happy.”

"In gold jewelry and luxe-looking riffs on traditional businesslike silhouettes like the suit, cardigan and turtleneck sweater, her hair loose and makeup modest..."

"... Paltrow has effectively split the difference between demure propriety and power glam. She has simultaneously telegraphed two messages that very well could have been at odds: 'Look, I’m just a mom who tried to take her teenagers on a nice ski vacation,' and 'Yes I am wealthy and famous, and I shan’t be wasting my time on this.'... Paltrow’s soft, gentle silhouettes also presented a subtle contrast to the allegation that she had crashed into another skier and then bolted away. On Thursday, Paltrow wore a soft-looking relaxed-fit gray double-breasted suit over a thin scoop-neck shirt of the same color. Friday, when Paltrow sat listening to witness testimony in a collared, dark long-sleeved top with slight puff sleeves, lips pursed and cheekbones jutting, she looked pleasant and non-threatening — if also mildly annoyed to be missing a Goop staff meeting, or a farm-to-table vegan lunch reservation, or a crystal sound bath...."

 
Such are the subjective observations of Ashley Fetters Maloy, writing in WaPo, in  "At trial, Gwyneth Paltrow is dressing for where she’d rather be/The Goop founder’s clothes have telegraphed two messages at once: She was just a regular mom on a ski vacation, and she is too famous to waste her time on this." 

The question in the case is who skied into whom — that is, who was uphill. The plaintiff sued Paltrow for $3 million, but it got reduced to $300,000. Why didn't she just settle? She counterclaimed for $1 plus attorney's fees. I think it's because she's telling the truth.

I watched this clip of her testimony on TikTok, and I predict she'll win — as one commenter says, "I'm with bone broth lady":

Just 4 TikToks to amuse you this dark afternoon.

1. Wolves at night, in the forest.

2. Skijoring.

3. He found an eagle.

4. Random generosity.

I scroll through TikTok so you don't have to. Here are 4 things I found for you.

1. A 4-year-old girl narrates her snowboard run: "Dada, I absorbed those!"

2. "Why are missing feet washing up on Canada's beaches?"

3. "Why your pianist friend never answers the phone." 

4. Dad is always concerned about eating early.

"Althaus, who helped Germany win the mixed team event three times at the ski jumping world championships, was among the women disqualified Monday when FIS ruled that their suits were 'too big and offered an aerodynamic advantage.'"

"Bigger suits could increase the time ski jumpers are able to stay aloft, given the possibility of increased wind resistance... 'I have been checked so many times in 11 years of ski jumping, and I have never been disqualified once, I know my suit was compliant,” the German star [Katharina Althaus] said.... The sport is among the eight that go back to the original Winter Olympics program in 1924, but women weren’t allowed to participate until 2014, after a group of athletes filed a lawsuit in 2009, ahead of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. 'It’s like jumping down from, let’s say, about two meters above the ground about a thousand times a year, which seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view,' former FIS president Gian Franco Kasper infamously claimed in 2005. (Kaser, a Swiss native who held that position from 1998 to 2021, did not have a medical background.)... In an Instagram post, Althaus wrote in German: 'I have no words for the decisions that were made today. Our sport was damaged as a result. Athletes and their dreams were destroyed. … It was one of the most important competitions for us women, a premiere for the entire sport and then something like that!! I am so disappointed and angry.'" 

From "Five female Olympians disqualified because of suits in one of the ‘darker days’ for ski jumping" (WaPo). 

I love the name Althaus, but I must say, looking at the photograph, below, that the very long crotch on those pants seems to give something of a wingsuit — or flying-squirrel — effect. I can see why competitors would seek every advantage they can get from their gear, but if they are technically in violation, they take on the risk of disqualification. It also looks bad, and so — to paraphrase Kasper — it seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a fashion point of view. Do looks matter? Is the Olympics about getting us to watch?

"There are so many areas of our recreational life that have been segregated, and downhill skiing is one of them."

"This sport took off in our country after World War II. It was created for affluent white soldiers who experienced it in France and Europe."

Said Daniel Krymkowski, "a sociology professor at the University of Vermont who published a book last year about African American underrepresentation in fine arts and outdoor recreation," quoted in "Who Gets to Ski? The mountains are too crowded. The sport is too expensive. Several resorts are trying to fix a number of problems. How are they doing?" (NYT). 

Only 1.5% of skiers are black, so they're not the reason why the resorts are crowded, but according to Anthony Kwame Harrison, a professor of sociology and Africana studies at Virginia Tech, "if longtime skiers become frustrated because they are seeing ski areas being crowded, when you look at that crowd, who do you immediately identify as being most out of place?" It's not that skiers are racist, just that they're stressed by the crowds and in an exclusionary mood.

Meanwhile, there are efforts to bring in new skiers — beginning skiers — who are "Black and brown and Indigenous." I feel nudged to think that racial problems have arisen, but I'm not seeing anything specific in the article. There seem to be 2 different issues — crowded slopes and lack of racial diversity in the sport — and they're jammed together like an idea for a movie plot.

"At French Resorts, Skiing Has Become an Uphill Sport/The government closed ski lifts, fearing they might spread the coronavirus. The skiers came anyway."

The NYT reports. 

“When you go out skiing in the cold, the first thing that happens is your nose starts to run,” said Miles Bright, an English mountain guide based in Chamonix. “And what do you do? You wipe your nose. So your gloves are covered in snot, you join in the lift queue, you touch things.” 

“I just can’t see how it can be hygienic, getting in and out of the ski lifts,” he added. “But for the nation’s health, I think it’s absolutely essential.” 

Bright, like the rest of skiers on the mountain, was ski touring — ascending the mountain using skins attached to his skis, then detaching them to descend normally. He estimated it would take him four times as long to go up than to ski down.

Will you ever think about a ski lift the same way again? 

What I'm trying to understand at the moment instead of last night's debate.

Kim Jong-un "hardly repressed his happiness, saying that it has become possible to provide people with new culture, and one more plan of the Party to make our people enjoy high civilization under socialism as early as possible has come true."

Wrote the Korean Central News Agency, quoted in "North Korea opens mountain spa, ski resort in tourism push" (AP). Kim a ribbon and rode, alone, up the chairlift. According to the imperfect AP, Kim called the resort a “miracle and prefect edifice.”

There's more detail at NK News:

It is a “city-like resort” that comprises indoor and outdoor baths, “modern service facilities, single- and multi-storied dwelling houses, a skiing ground, a horse-riding park, etc. perfect in terms of formative art, reciprocity, connectivity and practicality are organized nature-and environment-friendly,” another report added.

[F]irst vice-chairman of the State Affairs Commission (SAC) Choe Ryong Hae... emphasized that the project is a show of the country’s Juche or “self-reliant” spirit... “The successful completion of the resort is a clear manifestation of the might of the single-minded unity of Juche Korea breaking through any harsh challenges by dint of the strong unity of the leader and the people.... a decisive match fought without guns... a sharp class struggle with the enemies who adamantly attempt to halt our advance.”...

[Video] showed interior finishings of lobbies and hotel rooms, amenities such as vending machines in covered walkways....

Meanwhile, "North Korea calls Trump ‘erratic’ old man over tweets" (AP):

North Korea insulted U.S. President Donald Trump again on Monday, calling him a “heedless and erratic old man” after he tweeted that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wouldn’t want to abandon a special relationship between the two leaders and affect the American presidential election by resuming hostile acts.

2 TikTok selections for you.

My TikTok selections of the day,

1. In case you need to be convinced that climbing a tree is not a way to escape from a bear:



2. 2 examples of a woman who can't see the person she's looking at:

Skijoring.

Wikipedia:

For hundreds of years, Laplanders have been harnessing reindeer and strapping on Nordic skis as a way to travel across vast snowy expanses, and skijoring (spelled skijøring or skikjoring in Norwegian and meaning "ski driving") is still popular in all Scandinavian countries... By 1912, skijoring behind horses was a popular activity in Switzerland, France and the Tatra Mountains of Poland.... In the early 1900s, equine skijoring found its way to North America....

When World War II ended, men from the 10th Mountain Division, our "Soldiers on Skis", returned home. There were no ski resorts or lifts back then, so their cowboy friends attached a long rope to their saddle horn, and the skier held on as the horse was ridden at high speeds down a long straight-away usually an open field or a snow-covered roadway. Mountain towns like Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Steamboat Springs, Colorado took up the sport often running teams of horse, rider and skier side by side down main streets.... Thus, American races were born....

Another view:

"The 72-year-old retired optometrist claims that [Gwyneth] Paltrow, 46, was 'skiing out of control' when she hit him from behind, 'knocking him down hard, knocking him out'..."

"Instead of staying to help, 'Paltrow got up, turned and skied away, leaving Sanderson stunned, lying in the snow, seriously injured,' the lawsuit said, describing the incident as a 'hit-and-run ski crash.'...  [According to the plaintiff, Terry Sanderson, there were] large signs as 'big as two refrigerators' that told skiers to slow down...  he decreased his speed appropriately and was 'just enjoying the day.' 'Then, I heard this hysterical scream like you never hear on a ski run,' he said. 'Never have I heard it in my life . . . like King Kong came out of the jungle or something.'"

Paltrow is white, so Sanderson can get away with saying "like King Kong came out of the jungle."

The story appears in WaPo, with the headline "'My brain felt like I’d been injected with novocaine’: Gwyneth Paltrow sued for alleged skiing 'hit-and-run.'"

The headline made me think the quote came from Paltrow. I thought that injected-with-novocaine feeling was Paltrow's reaction to getting accused of doing something wrong. But it's Sanderson: "My ribs were really sore, and my brain felt like I’d been injected with novocaine... It was just numb, nothing was making sense."

"The Norwegian saboteurs skied across the Telemark pine forest in winter whites, phantom apparitions gliding over moonlit snow."

"They halted at a steep river gorge and gazed down at a humming hydroelectric power plant where Nazi scientists had developed a mysterious, top-secret project. Lt. Joachim Ronneberg, the 23-year-old resistance fighter in command, and his eight comrades — all carrying cyanide capsules to swallow if captured — had been told by British intelligence only that the plant was distilling something called heavy water, and that it was vital to Hitler’s war effort.Hours later, in one of the most celebrated commando raids of World War II, Lieutenant Ronneberg and his demolition team sneaked past guards and a barracks full of German troops, stole into the plant, set explosive charges and blew up Hitler’s hopes for a critical ingredient to create the first atomic bomb.... They skied by night, rested by day and reached the gorge late on the night of Feb. 27, 1943.... The power plant was perched on a ledge halfway up the far slope...."

From "Joachim Ronneberg, Leader of Raid That Thwarted a Nazi Atomic Bomb, Dies at 99" (NYT).

Is there a better story in the history of skiing?

If you're thinking, I'd like to see this in a movie, no you wouldn't. Here's how it looked in the movies...



... and I consider that a fantastic argument for why writing — like the quote in the post title — is superior to cinema. Movies do excel at confronting you with giant, beautiful faces. Mesmerizing... and ludicrous.

Somehow I wasn't bothered as much by this...

Maybe don't skate to the theme from Schindler's List if you're from Germany. It's just a little bit #Awkward. #Olympics https://t.co/VgVlBfgfY6

— Ann Dystopian Fan (@AnnDystopianFan) February 23, 2018

... as by the German cross-country skier who accepted a German flag as he skied into the stadium and waved it as he crossed the finish line. I said out loud: "I don't see how you can wave the German flag." Prompted to think of all the great Germans in history, I said: "You can express pride about particular Germans" — I'm thinking, Beethoven... — "but don't express pride in Germany." Maybe in 100 years.

IN THE COMMENTS: Livermoron wrote:

I lived in Germany for a decade. The Germans are very split on this issue. Here is an article from 17 years ago that addresses that issue. Note that a parliamentary representative was taken to task for saying he is proud to be a German while the former Bundespraesident refused to say the same thing.

The Germans are a fucked-up people, politics-wise. They took away the wrong lessons from WW2. Instead of learning that they need to stand up and actively fight against evil they simply fall back on a lazy and disingenuous pacifism and let others do the lifting. Maybe it is because they don't trust themselves to do the right thing. They shouldn't.

My German wife (yes, I organize my wives by nationality) and I were discussing current German politics and the debacle that Deutschland has become. We wondered why there were no great German champions of Democracy/natural rights. No Rousseau, no Locke.

Ultimately we ended-up agreeing that people who derive their politics from German philosophers, well...shouldn't.

Gently filtered afternoon light on a freshly groomed cross-country ski trail.

We are so enjoying the February snows. There had been no occasion to ski until the last few days, so we've been getting out on this familiar trail every day. I'm determined to maintain my skill, which is only at the level called "easy." I don't expect ever to get better at skiing, but am proud of the accomplishment of plateauing, which is something you can do — you should do — when you are old.

Feel free to use this post as a "café" (i.e., an open thread), and remember the old Althouse Portal when you're going to Amazon.

Drudge attributes superhuman powers to Trump.

Too mean? How hurt is she? Not that hurt:

Looks like i have an acute facet (spinal joint) dysfunction. I got compressed on the 6th gate and my back seized up. Rested and had a lot of therapy tonight. We will see how I feel tomorrow and then decide if I will race....

What did she say about Trump? Asked if she'd do the traditional visit to the White House after the Olympic, she'd said "absolutely not." Later, she clarified: "I was asked my opinion and I gave it. I mean, it's not necessarily my place to be sticking my nose in politics, but as an athlete I do have a voice." She also said that at the Olympics she would "represent the people of the United States, not the president." She didn't mention Trump, but she did say she admired Colin Kaepernick, which the linked article (to Fox News) connects to Trump, in that Trump has tweeted about Kaepernick. But Kaepernick's protest wasn't about Trump. If I remember correctly, Kaepernick protest is about race and the police (something we don't hear much about anymore).

The news for cats.

1. "They even had a cat together named Max," writes the Daily Mail in "EXCLUSIVE: 'They went back and forth having sex, screaming, yelling, having sex.' Meet the college professor who Barack Obama loved and lost because he 'wasn't black enough to have a white wife,'" where the top-rated comment is: "They 'had a cat together'? Is that even biologically possible?"

2. "Judge Posner Is Beyond Catty" is a column by Ed Whelan at National Review who is incredibly irked at 7th Circuit judge Richard A. Posner for doubting that Neil Gorsuch cried while skiing when he heard that Justice Scalia died. Posner doubts both that the news intercepted Gorsuch on a ski slope and also that the crying could ensue, given that Scalia was 80, a heavy smoker and — in Posner's un-PC words — "known to be obese." Whelan struggled to come up with mean enough words to lob at Posner. After trying "What a jerk," he ended up with Posner's own words: "I have exactly the same personality as my cat…. Cold, furtive, callous, snobbish, selfish, and playful, but with a streak of cruelty." Poor hapless Whelan, trying to make us hate Posner and serving up one of Posner's best witty remarks. Whelan, thinking he's getting the better of Posner, follows that cool joke with a humorless "Yes, indeed. Decent human beings aim higher."

3. Howard Stern has 17 kittens.

4. "In a bizarre case that so far has police and residents stumped, at least seven cats in Waynesboro’s Tree Streets neighborhood have been shaved since December without their owners’ permission, according to Waynesboro Police," reports The News Virginian. The cats were "shaved in the underbelly, groin and leg areas" and "not otherwise harmed."

5. Evidence that cats are nowhere nearly as popular as mainstream media think. Here's a Washington Post article, titled "An artist’s best friend? Cats, a new Smithsonian exhibit claims," full of cute pictures of cats, including one holding an artist's brush and palette and — to make sure you get that the cat is an artist — wearing a beret. The article has been up for over a week, and it has zero comments.

6. That's it for the cat news. There are hundreds of recent cat stories, but they don't make the cut. They don't make the shave. I think, as I said in Item #5, people are not that interested in cats. Remember when cats ruled the internet? Bloggers did Friday Cat Blogging. Hey, wait a minute. Kevin Drum still does Friday Cat Blogging. Here's the most recent one, deploying a cat for the cause of anti-Trumpism. But even cat-anti-Trumpiana is old. Here's "These Cats Look Like Donald Trump/The Internet makes #TrumpYourCat a thing." It's from July 2015.

7. From the comments to this post, after a certain amount of discussion of crying — "What happened to Posner?" (MayBee), "I don't know, but he's 78, and if he dies, there should be no crying" (me), "There's no crying in jurisprudence – or skiing!" (Paco Wové) — campy said: "I cried because I had no cats, until I met a man who had 17."

Is Trump "unhappy" that Jared Kushner went on a ski trip to Aspen just as the healthcare bill got stymied?

That's what some source said, causing the anti-Trump media to blurt out headlines like "Trump unhappy Jared Kushner took a powder on the ski slopes as health care bill floundered."*

Kushner was on vacation until Thursday, skiing with family in the posh Colorado town of Aspen. Paparazzi caught Jared and Ivanka taking leisurely strolls, enjoying ice cream cones with their three kids and winding their way down the slopes.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, Trump was fuming. According to a source close to the president, "[Trump] is upset that his son-in-law and senior adviser was not around during this crucial week." Kushner did appear at the White House on Friday during the last gasps of the Obamacare repeal effort.

I smell fake news! I think someone is just guessing — and hoping — that Trump is having tantrums. Even if I believed he's that touchily emotional, I wouldn't believe that he thinks the Kushners' ski trip is bad political theater. Because... it's not... is it? I think it says: Everything's going along just fine, we've got everything under control, everybody's happy. And also: Trump isn't dependent on having his kids at his elbows at all times keeping him normal.

But, yeah, if he freaks out when they're gone, he sounds unhinged. Which is why I think CNN carried the story.
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* I loathe that kind of cornball writing — took a powder on the ski slopes — especially when they went ahead and used floundered instead of coming up with something else that sounds ski-related.

By the way, is the right word flounder or founder?

A flounder is a fish,** but as a verb, it means to blunder about, to be in serious trouble....

A founder is someone who starts something, but as a verb, founder literally means "to sink." Figuratively, it's "to collapse or fail completely."...

Flounder and founder are happy little nouns that don't get mixed up. But it all falls apart when they're verbs — if you're floundering, you're struggling. If you're foundering, you're failing completely. You're sunk! You can't even hold onto the letter l.

Take a powder, of course, does not actually relate to the powder that is snow. But exactly what does it refer to?

The phrase take a powder meaning to "scram, vanish," is probably from the 20's; it was a common phrase as a doctor's instruction, so perhaps from the notion of taking a laxative medicine or a sleeping powder, with the result that one has to leave in a hurry (or, on another guess, from a magician's magical powder, which made things disappear). Powder blue (1650s) was smelt used in laundering; as a color name from 1894.

Smelt?!



Fish keep turning up in strange places. I think the intended word is smalt — which is cobalt glass.


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** Footnote to a footnote: This is another reason to reject "flounder." With that powder... ski business, the writer has just nudged us to think concretely about random words and be amused by the image, and a flounder cannot swim in snow, but it is one of those subjects people have had passionate, pointless arguments about.