500 People showed up for the first tour in 1999, and by 2003, more than 100,000 people were visiting annually, all scaling the mountain via bus and tedious switchbacks.
" I mean, there's a perfectly good set of steps over there." Ridoc points to the steep staircase carved into the cliff beside the wide switchbacks of the Gauntlet.
" Thanks, Aurelie." I locate the series of nearly touching, three-foot-wide logs that jut out from the rocky terrain like a set of round steps rising from the ground to the switchback above it and nod.