A Favorite Place: Yosemite

One of my favorite places to visit is Yosemite National Park. Thankfully, since it’s just a few hours drive from home, I have been there dozens of times. Here’s a pretty picture of El Capitan.

(Click the image to embiggen.)

Probably the most inspiring, tempting and most recognisable of the big walls around the world, El Capitan (named from a rough Spanish translation of its Native American name To-to-kon-oo-lah), rises a massive 900m from its base. Originally thought to be unclimbable it was first scaled in 1958 by Warren Harding, Wayne Merry and George Whitmore, their ascent took them a total 47 days to complete!

Harding and his gang climbed El Cap up a route called ‘The Nose’. Since their awesome first ascent hundreds of new routes have been put up on the rock face and in contrast to their slow but successful attempt speed climbing is now a popular way of taking on the giant. Alex Honnald and Hans Florine currently hold the speed climbing record, taking on El Capitan in 2 hours 23 minutes and 44 seconds on June 17 2012.

One of the header images of this site is indeed a panoramic view of Yosemite.