MHT is currently hosted on a wixsite.com domain. The reason? I can't afford the domain, being a 16-year-old with no money and no source of income.
The Domain
When I settled on rebranding as MHT, I knew that I would need to buy mht.com. I noticed that it was parked by DomainAgents, and was for sale.
I knew that a website with a three-letter name from 1995 would be more expensive than a traditional one, which is about $10 a year. So, out of curiosity, I made an offer of $2000.
Ryan from DomainAgents got into contact with me, and received what I was dreading to hear.
The domain would be over $25,000 at least, in order for the owner to take me remotely seriously.
This was way too expensive for me, let alone the initial asking price of $2000.
Safe to say, I replied swiftly, asking to close the offer.
So, the question is, why is a parked domain so expensive?
History of MHT.com
Believe it or not, the MHT domain has a long history, dating to 1995.
The first snapshot on the Wayback Machine is from 1998 [1].
This site doesn't change until 2002 [2], where it becomes the landing page for Mountain High Technology, Inc, which appears to be a technology store that operate[s/d] in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, USA.
This company seems to have faded entirely into obscurity, and I have not been able to find information about whether or not it is still operational. I doubt it.
A 'Brief' Tangent On Mountain High Tech
Mountain High Technology, Inc was apparently founded in the late 80s and specialised in selling PC hardware. According to their LinkedIn, they are located at 730 Lincoln Ave, Steamboat Springs, Colorado. A look on Google Street View shows a shop known as Adorn.
This gives me reason to believe that they are no longer in business.
I would love to dial their listed phone number at (970) 879 7063, but I have no money to make international calls and it would have likely bounced. I know, I tried. I might visit one day, I don't know.
Their old website claims to be in 1306 Lincoln Ave., but that leads to a hairdresser and a restaurant called Joose which is labelled as permanently closed. The negative reviews are funny to read, though.
The one above shames the reviewer for making a "crummy" review. The tone is so condescending in the funniest way possible. Also, that review ends by claiming, "Cheers and go to a Jamba Juice; seems more your type". How rude.
Another negative review corroborates that the establishment is local, since the feedback claims to know the reviewer personally.
To conclude, Mountain High Technology are likely out of business, but I would love to learn more about it, so I will definitely do that once my budget permits it.
Back To The Past
The website remains unchanged until the snapshot on June 8th 2003, which suggests the timeframe of the site's death. [3]
It goes back online on June 17th, however.
Weirdly enough, on October 13th 2003 [4], the site changes to a placeholder:
I sat there pressing the Next Snapshot button at a really slow pace, speeding through the early 2000's.
Then, in 2004 [5], the domain is parked by Dotster.com.
Later, in 2005 [6], the parked page is changed to a traditional parked page.
This changes again [7] in the next snapshot, with an invalid domain.
Then, nearly 2 years later [8], it goes back to a generic parked domain.
Then, finally, in 2008, it gets interesting, It appears that mht.com was re-bought by someone else.
Cheap Airline Flights
On the April 30 2008 snapshot, the website changes from a parked domain to an airline company. [9]
My guess is that it was a re-seller of plane tickets or something.
The next snapshot [10] is a blank page with the title "banned interdit verboden prohibido vietato proibido".
It appears that mht.com's history is troubled, with continual rebrands and downtimes. Almost as if it's cursed yet continually in demand.
Jumping 2 IP's, we see why the website was broken. [11]
I needed to back out of the snapshot browser and continue along the trail.
On October 14, 2011, it's back to normal.
In late 2014 [12], it gets parked by Sedo. I don't know exactly which snapshot it is, I skipped like 20 identical ones and can't be bothered.
From 2014 to 2020, it remains basically unchanged, being parked by Sedo for a very long time.
This is what the site looks like today.
It travelled from Steamboat Springs, Colorado to some random CDN owned by Sedo Domain Parking.
This segment ended up being way longer and more interesting than I initially guessed, and it makes me want to go to Steamboat Springs to see if Mountain High Technology is still around, and maybe get into contact with the owners. This gives me Nick Robinson vibes, actually.
Investigation Pt. II
This segment was written about five days after the previous segment, and I have uncovered some more information.
The Yelp page for MHT makes a claim that does not surprise me in the slightest:
The business is dead.
When I saw this, I knew that I needed to investigate any remnants of MHT I could find.
First, I picked the address (1306 Lincoln Ave) listed on the website on Google Maps and chose a previous snapshot. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any information as the snapshots were too low-quality.
So, the trail goes cold.
Conclusion
This took a long time to do. I spent about a month working on this. This was not worth it.
The point is, I was unable to find out what Mountain High Technology was and why it closed down. Maybe that's a good thing. Some things deserve to stay in the past.
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