Re: Nat. Geo. May's Cover Story: Rock Climbing in Yosemite (the New Generation)

The cover story of the National Geographic Magazine's May issue is about the new generation of Yosemite rock climbers.

Here's a link to the article: National Geographic: Yosemite Climbing

And here's a link to the article's photo gallery: National Geographic: Yosemite Climbing Photo Gallery



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2011 02:21AM by plawrence.

Wow! some of those photos are quite amazing. . .

Great photos...but I have a question: Was there really a plane that crashed with dope in the High country...or is that something from Nevada Barr;s novel?

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It's true, quite well documented. Google will bring up numerous links.

The novel was a ripoff of the idea.

Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite has a decent sized section discussing the crash, aftermath, and the NPS recovery and clean up.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2011 01:34PM by qumqats.

I was always curious about it's validity too, but always forget to look it up. Thanks, now I know.

NG always has nice photos. I crop many of them for my wallpapers.

Nice articles and photos. Thanks for the links.

How popular is base-jumping off of Half Dome? NG has many pictures of that.

Not very, since it's illegal and the rangers confiscate your parachute if they catch you.

I can think of two deaths of base jumpers. One guy drowned when tried to swim across the Merced River. He took off when he saw that the rangers had seen him.
Another was a woman who jumped with a spare chute, she didn't want to lose her main chute when it was confiscated. Her shoulder got dislocated when she jumped. She wasn't familiar with the spare chute and wasn't able to get to the main or spare release with her other hand in time.

These were both off of El Capitan, not Half Dome.

The only NPS sanctioned activity that involves jumping off of a cliff is Para/Hang gliding off of Glacier Point, and it is VERY tightly controlled.
The NPS has a working relationship with the hang gliding community.

NPS has always had a very cantankerous relationship with the base jumping community.

It is illegal, but there is a whole community for it. Google.

I love the Glacier Point hang gliding videos.

The Goat and I were camped somewhere where we could see the hang gliders one Sunday morning. (I think it was Sunday) and the first one we saw was sort of hovering in the notch by Yosemite Falls. Just hanging there for what seemed like several minutes before he headed west to the landing zone. We saw maybe 5 or 6 more gliders that morning all following the same basic route. Across the valley from the point, into the YF notch, then west to the landing zone.

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Old Dude

They are great. Yosemite with a different view! There isn't too much info about gliding on Yosemite's website. Is it discouraged?