Everest VR is not like climbing a mountain, and it shouldn’t have to be

I grew up at the foot of a dormant volcano in the Cascades, and like many of my classmates, I climbed it a few times as a teenager. Mountains — real, tree-bare, snow-capped mountains — feel like alien worlds. Air is thinner; water boils faster. Wind scours any signs of life from sheer rock faces, and algae turns snow a strange, bloody pink. The natural forces that you shrug off at sea level, like nightfall or bad weather, become life-threatening obstacles.
Booting up Everest VR, a ne