It might have taken a while to get it, but the Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum, which opened in Golden in February, was worth the wait. This is no mere exhibition hall; the cutting-edge, 3,000-square-foot facility, a joint venture of the Colorado Mountain Club, the American Alpine Club and the National Geographic Society, is the Smithsonian of mountaineering and a Disneyland for adrenaline junkies all rolled into one. Massive scale model of Mount Everest? Check. Legendary artifacts like the Schoening ice ax, used on K2 in 1953 to save five climbers from tumbling to their deaths? Check. Uber-realistic prefabricated rock crevasse on which visitors can finesse their technique? Check. Everything's here but the vertigo.