Mountains hold near-magical places in our imaginations: hulking, immovable and unpredictable in ways human-made structures are not. In her new book Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams, Vermont author Katie Ives tells the story of blank spaces on maps, and the pull to explore and fill them in.
Ives documents the story of the Riesenstein Hoax, in which three pranksters in the early 1960s convinced a leading climbing magazine to publish a story about a fake mountain range in Canada.
Ives is the editor-in-chief of the Alpinist magazine, a quarterly publication about climbing, and an avid climber herself.
In her interview with Vermont Edition co-host Mikaela Lefrak, Ives said her favorite local climbing activity is to summit Vermont peaks right at sunset, and watch the sun go down over the snowy landscape.
Listen to the full interview to hear more from Ives about her book, and how Indigenous traditions informed her writing.
Broadcast live on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022 at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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