The Olympics: King from the Kitchen

As mountains go, Austria's Patscherkofel is not likely to win any beauty contests. A short (7,373 ft.), stumpy cone, it looks for all the world like an inverted Dixie cup. But the Patscherkofel makes up in ruggedness what it lacks in looks. At last week's ninth Winter Olympics, its rocky crags and fir-covered slopes were the site of the men's downhill, the fastest and toughest course ever to test the mettle of the world's finest skiers.

High Hopes. The weather was sunny enough to make the surface moist and soft, cold enough (at...