Thursday, January 15, 2015

Thinking Thursday

By now you have probably heard that Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson have completed their free-climb ascent of the Dawn Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. It was an amazing feat.

Mom has actually been to Yosemite, and seen El Cap. She says you stand in El Cap meadow, about a half a mile away from it, and you almost fall over backwards when you lean your head back to look at the top.

Mom's brother Mr Photographer has climbed "El Cap" over two dozen times so Mom and I already knew what was so special about the climb. We didn't need anybody to explain the terms "pitch," "crux," "belay," "jumar," or "portaledge." We know all about the difference between "nuts" and "bolts" and we actually know what "5.12c" means.

I am a Cat. I am an expert at climbing anything, but I salute Tommy and Kevin.  Congrats, guys!

5 comments:

Max said...

That was freaking AMAZING. We watched the news every day just to see how they were doing and how close they were. Any big climb is fantastic, but that was just...WHOA.

Monday walkers said...

Yes- that was amazing - I was trying to follow where they put their tents to sleep ( to be honest, Millie - I prefer my bedroom!)

Noela Sydney Australia

Megan said...

Well it's obviously made news in Australia, as Noela knows what you're talking about. But clearly I haven't been paying attention 'cos I don't. What seems curious is that if your mom's brother has climbed it more than 20 times, why is it so newsworthy that someone else has done it? I'll have to click on your links, I guess.

Megan
Sydney, Australia

Just Ducky said...

We saw it on the news, that was furry hard to do.

Peggy said...

Millie is spot on about this climbing stuff. Pretty amazing. Millie's Mom's brother has been pretty excited about this. He climbed that very route years ago,setting standards for the time, but with aid including bolt ladders. Tommy and Kevin did it safely with ropes, too, but without the ladders. Just their
own finesse!