Word: capitan
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...like instead of wrestling with a person, I am moving and working with a rock," he explains. "It's a beautiful process of solving a puzzle." He is an accomplished rock climber, rated 5.10 (5.14 being the highest), and has led teams up sections of Yosemite's notorious El Capitan. On ice, where one wrong strike with an ice ax can bring down an avalanche, Erik has learned to listen to the ice as he pings it gently with his ax. If it clinks, he avoids it. If it makes a thunk like a spoon hitting butter, he knows...
...like instead of wrestling with a person, I am moving and working with a rock," he explains. "It's a beautiful process of solving a puzzle." He is an accomplished rock climber, rated 5.10 (5.14 being the highest), and has led teams up sections of Yosemite's notorious El Capitan. On ice, where one wrong strike with an ice ax can bring down an avalanche, Erik has learned to listen to the ice as he pings it gently with his ax. If it clinks, he avoids it. If it makes a thunk like a spoon hitting butter, he knows...
DIED. ALEX LOWE, 40, perhaps the greatest American mountaineer in recent years; in a massive avalanche on Tibet's Shisha Pangma, the world's 14th highest peak. Lowe climbed the nose of El Capitan in 10 hrs. and made the first solo ascent of the north face of Wyoming's Grand Teton. He conquered Everest twice. Despite the superlatives regularly heaped on him by colleagues, he said, "I'm just the world's most dogmatic climber...
...Same with mountain climbing," he says. Chouinard, who has climbed El Capitan and every other seemingly impossible mountain, was caught in an avalanche on Gongga Shan in China in 1980. He and three companions rode the avalanche down 1,500 ft.; one of the others broke his neck and died. "Nowadays, people are interested only in reaching the top so they can tell others they did it," says Chouinard. "So they climb Everest with a Sherpa tied to them by a 3-ft. rope, one behind and one in front. Their beds are made when they reach camp. Someone...
Roger Rosenblatt's commentary on the extreme sport of base jumping [ESSAY, July 19] included a reference to the death of a man who parachuted from the top of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. The correct spelling of the jumper's name is Frank Gambalie III. Also, he did not die from the jump but apparently drowned after diving into a river as he fled from park rangers...