Climbers Rock On El Capitan

"Go Climb a Rock" is the slogan seen on tee shirts at Yosemite National Park promoting their famous mountaineering school. Yosemite is known as a designation for world class mountain climbers, and casual day hikers as well.

Climbers enjoy an endless variety of challenges- from the sustained crack climbs of the Merced river canyon to pinching crystals on sun drenched Tuolumne domes to multi-day aid climbs on the big walls of the Valley. Yosemite is not just a climber's playground, however- Its walls and crags are an integral part of a larger ecosystem, protected as wilderness, that was set aside for people to enjoy in a natural state for generations to come.

A band of climbers were spotted ascending the shear granite rock face of the 7,569-foot tall El Capitan last week, attracting a lot of attention of visitors on the valley floor. Folks craned their necks upwards using binoculars, and telephoto camera lenses to watch the climbers' progress.

As the number of climbers visiting the park has increased through the years, the impacts of climbing have become much more obvious. According to park officials, some of those impacts include: soil compaction, erosion, and vegetation loss in parking areas, at the base of climbs, and on approach and descent trails, destruction of cliffside vegetation and lichen, disturbance of cliff-dwelling animals, litter, water pollution from improper human waste disposal, and the visual blight of chalk marks, pin scars, bolts, rappel slings, and fixed ropes.

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