Futility Closet

In 1910, four Alaskan gold miners set out to climb Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America, to win a two-cent bar bet. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the surprising story of the Sourdough Expedition, a mountaineering effort that one modern climber calls "superhuman by today's standards." We'll also hear about a ghoulish tourist destination and puzzle over why a painter would blame himself for World War II. Sources for our feature on the Sourdough expedition: Bill Sherwonit, "The Sourdough Expedition," Alaska 68:4 (May/June 2002), 28. Jason Strykowski, "Impossible Heights: The Alaskan Miners Who Conquered Mount McKinley," Wild West 24:4 (December 2011), 20. Terrence Cole, ed., The Sourdough Expedition, 1985. W.F. Thompson, "First Account of Conquering Mt. McKinley," New York Times, June 5, 1910. Listener mail: The Telegraph has a photo of the mummies in the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo, Sicily. Wikipedia has a photo of Rosalia Lombardo, the immaculately preserved 2