Good morning, Stoke Crew. Solid sendition for you all today! Anyone gearing up for a long weekend of adventures? I'm heading out to Salida with friends for some camping, biking, and rafting... Pretty stoked about it! Alright, let's get into it.
In today's report
- 🎿 Polish ski mountaineer skis Lhotse from summit to base, no oxygen
- 🏔️ Sherpas rewrite Everest's record books
- 🚵 Boulder County floats trail-day restrictions
- ❄️ Mountain infrastructure: Lifts & Trains
- 🇺🇸 The North Face inks 8-year deal with U.S. Ski & Snowboard
Today's Stoke Story
🏔️ Skiing down the 4th tallest peak
🎿 Polish ski mountaineer Bartek Ziemski became the first person ever to ski Lhotse from the summit all the way back to Everest Base Camp without bottled oxygen, completing the line on May 12. The 8,516-meter Lhotse is the world's fourth-highest peak, and the line down its steep, icy face is considered one of the hardest in ski mountaineering. Ziemski did it solo above Camp 4, broke trail to the summit as the first climber of the season, and skied through the Khumbu Icefall in a whiteout on the way down.
- Hilaree Nelson and Jim Morrison made the first ski descent of the line in 2018, but stopped at Camp II and used supplemental oxygen and a film crew. Ziemski's run is the first continuous summit-to-Base-Camp descent without O2 or large team support.
- This is his eighth 8,000-meter peak skied without oxygen, joining Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Kangchenjunga, Makalu, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum II, and Manaslu. He's quietly working toward becoming the first to ski all 14 8,000-meter peaks.
- He has no sponsors, no social media, and lives out of a van. "I'm not a mountaineer at all. I just do it for fun," he told one reporter at base camp. He also bought a permit for Everest and may try it next if the crowds let him.
Why It Matters: The biggest ski descent of the Himalayan season was done by an unemployed software engineer in duct-taped pants who doesn't post on Instagram. While the rest of the high-altitude scene chases sponsors, drones, and film crews, Ziemski is quietly rewriting what's possible up there with none of it. That's the purest version of the sport, and it's almost extinct.
Mountaineering
🏆 Two Sherpas break records on Mt. Everest
🏔️ Kami Rita Sherpa pushed his own world record to 32 Everest summits after reaching the top of the world at 10:12 a.m. local time on May 17, while guiding clients for 14 Peaks Expedition. The 56-year-old Nepali mountain guide, known as the "Everest Man," first summited in 1994 and has gone almost every year since, sometimes twice in a single season. The next closest climber, Pasang Dawa Sherpa, sits at 29.
- Kami Rita grew up in Thame, the same Solukhumbu village that produced a long line of elite Sherpa guides. His father was among the first professional Sherpa climbers; his brother Lakpa Rita has summited Everest 17 times.
- Beyond Everest, he's logged a world-record 43 summits of 8,000-meter peaks. He has frequently served as a lead rope-fixer through the Khumbu Icefall and up the South Col route, charting the path for hundreds of commercial clients each year.
- This year's spring season has been one of the busiest on record, with Nepal issuing 492 Everest permits and the early-season route delayed for weeks by a massive serac in the Khumbu Icefall.
Why It Matters: Western mountaineering history has spent a hundred years framing Everest as a Western achievement. Kami Rita's 32 summits, plus his brother's 17, plus his late father's pioneering work, is a multi-generational reminder that the actual story of Everest is and always has been a Sherpa story.
👸🏽 Lhakpa Sherpa extended her own world record to 11 Everest summits on the same Sunday morning Kami Rita logged his 32nd, reaching the top at 9:30 a.m. while guiding a client. Known as the "Mountain Queen," the 52-year-old first summited on May 18, 2000, when she became the first Nepali woman to summit and descend Everest safely. She has now climbed it eight times from the Tibet side and three from the Nepal side.
- Lhakpa's life is the subject of the 2023 Netflix documentary Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa.
- She added K2 to her resume in July 2023 at age 49, the world's second-highest and most dangerous 8,000-meter peak.
- In 2003 she summited Everest alongside her brother Mingma Gelu Sherpa and her then-15-year-old sister Ming Kipa Sherpa, setting a Guinness record for most siblings on the summit at the same time.
Why It Matters: For years the headline names in Everest climbing have been Western summiteers chasing personal records. Lhakpa, Kami Rita, and the broader Sherpa community are quietly compiling the actual record book. Two records broken the same Sunday morning, by two climbers from the same country, is a moment worth celebrating. Without Sherpas, climbing Everest would be next to impossible for Westerners. Yeew!
Recreation
🌲 Boulder County floats trail-day limits
🚵 Boulder County is testing a pilot program that would assign different days or times to different trail users (hikers, bikers, and equestrians) on selected multi-use trails through the end of 2026. Boulder County Parks and Open Space is gathering public input now and aims to finalize details before July. Heil Valley Ranch, Hall Ranch, and Walker Ranch are all under consideration. The local mountain biking community is pushing back hard, arguing the pilot was rushed and there's no real evidence of a conflict problem.
- Boulder County's 2025 visitor study found just 4% of users countywide reported a trail conflict. Researcher Jerry J. Vaske recommends a 25% threshold before alternating use makes sense.
- An online survey closes today, with an open house in May. After the pilot ends, county commissioners will decide whether to make any changes permanent.
Why It Matters: Process matters here as much as the policy. The county acknowledges the existing data shows 4% conflict, well under the 25% threshold its own staff memo cited. Pushing a pilot anyway, with limited advisory committee review, is what's got mountain bikers angry, not just the possibility of restrictions. If you want community support, run it through the committees that already exist.
Mountain Briefing
🏗️ Mountain infrastructure: Lifts & Trains
🚠 Purgatory Resort got preliminary approval from La Plata County for its long-delayed Gelande lift, a fixed-grip triple running 4,200 feet out of the Gelande parking lot to the top of the Needles area. The mountain is targeting a 2026-27 opening, one year behind schedule after permitting delays. The package includes five new advanced and expert trails and a modest 12-acre terrain bump. The lift still needs final sign-off from the U.S. Forest Service, the San Juan National Forest, and the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board.
🚆 Rail advocates in Utah and Colorado want a connected ski train network between the two states before the 2034 Winter Olympics arrive in Salt Lake City. The Western Rail Coalition is pushing for reactivation of the dormant Tennessee Pass Line, plus expanded passenger service between Denver and Grand Junction, with the long-range vision of a continuous corridor through the Moffat Tunnel linking Denver and Salt Lake by rail.
Business
💼 The North Face goes red, white and blue
🇺🇸 The North Face and U.S. Ski & Snowboard signed an eight-year partnership making TNF the official performance apparel partner of the federation, beginning with the 2026-27 season and running through the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The deal covers competition outerwear, base layers, mid-layers, training apparel, bags, and accessories for athletes, coaches, and staff across all 11 U.S. Ski & Snowboard disciplines. It replaces Kappa, which had held the contract since 2022.
- Coverage includes alpine, cross country, freeski, freestyle, ski jumping, snowboard, and Para teams, plus the Stifel U.S. Ski Teams and Toyota U.S. Para Snowboard Team. Athletes will wear the gear at World Cups, World Championships, training camps, and both the 2030 Milano-Cortina follow-up in the French Alps and the 2034 Games.
🎿 Atomic restructured its North America leadership team effective May 18, promoting Sean Kennedy to general manager for the region after 12 years with the brand. New director roles for commercial/product (Jake Strassburger) and operations (Kate Stephanson) come with the shuffle, plus dedicated U.S. and Canada sales and marketing leads. Longtime Canadian market director Blair Blackie is moving to Austria for an EMEA role. The Amer Sports-owned brand is calling it the start of a new phase of North American growth.
📚 Trailhead Trivia
This is the tallest peak in the United States — can you name it?
⚡ Share The Stoke
This newsletter is for mountain lovers, first chair advocates, and the ones who live for type 2 fun. Basically, the type of people whose "five-year plan" is just a list of peaks and routes!
If you know someone like that, forward this email or send them to thestokereport.com. Thanks for spreading the stoke — it seriously means a lot!
Answer!
Denali (formerly known as Mount McKinley) is the highest mountain peak in North America, standing at 20,310 feet (6,190 meters) above sea level. It's located in the Alaska Range in Denali National Park and Preserve in interior Alaska.
See you soon,
Tyler
Creator — THE STOKE REPORT
