HIGH OVERHEAD, snow-capped mountains gleamed in the moon-light while a thousand people, their breath steaming in the frigid night, bayed for the blood of a giant effigy of the devil, about to go up in flames on a burning pyre. The soundtrack was base-thudding AC/DC, blaring through loudspeakers—and accompanied by a cacophony of large cow bells rung by Swiss men in lederhosen. It was the most peculiar opening ceremony for a sporting event I'd ever encoun-tered. But then, this was the Inferno, the world's most bonkers ski race.
Over the years, I had heard tales of grue-some injuries sustained on the infamous course above the chocolate-box-perfect Alpine village of Mürren, in the heart of Switzerland's Ber-nese Oberland mountains. I had signed a waiver to confirm that the risk of serious injury or death “cannot be excluded” while taking part in the descent down Mount Schilthorn. Join-ing some 1,500 amateur competitors, including the occasional Olympian, I knew that my first Inferno would prove to be a more than aver-agely challenging day on the slopes, to put it mildly. By the time everyone would make it
