Posts Tagged ‘Yosemite’
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Dean Is Featured In The September 2010 Issue of Playboy Magazine (article people, article)
Dean Potter is characterized by creativity, commitment and challenge. He started climbing as a child, with a free solo fall from a stone wall as one of his earliest memories. Since that time, he has speed soloed Half Dome and El Capitan, Cerro Torre, and Fitzroy. He was the first to make a one-day free ascent of El Cap and Half Dome, and a one-day speed linkup of both of those big walls and Mount Watkins, Yosemites third Grade VI wall. He has also established testpiece crack routes in the Utah desert and highball boulder problems in Yosemite.
Dean has walked the longest highlines, often without a safety leash, though he has dedicated over a decade of engineering and testing to create the safest highline systems currently used. Most recently, he has combined BASE jumping skill with highlining and free soloing, using a specially engineered ultralight BASE rig as his backup system.
Dean currently bases out of Yosemite, where he can usually be found on a large piece of granite.
For videos, photos and more information on Dean, visit http://bit.ly/DeanPotterTags.
Meet Congaree National Park. It’s a peaceful marshland in South Carolina boasting old-growth floodplain forests, tranquil fishing spots, and a 50-mile paddling trail for canoeists and kayakers.But as of August, Congaree had only gotten about 63,000 visitors in 2009. Compare that to the 3.5 million Yosemite gets each year and we’re left thinking: where’s the love?
Don’t get us wrong – we adore the heavy hitters on our national park lineup. Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and others of the in-crowd have rightfully earned our affection. But there’s a whole realm of overlooked parks packed with prime hiking, camping, and paddling opportunities. Visit them, and you can expect fewer gift shops and more chances to connect with nature.
That’s why we were delighted when the Los Angeles Times ran a photo essay about Congaree and more of our least-visited national parks. It has us itching for our tents and hiking boots.
– Année Tousseau
Thanks to the Sierra Club for this post
Accomplishment is nothing new for Katie Brown. She began sport climbing in Kentucky at the age of 13, and today is heralded as one of the world’s best, achieving in 14 years more than many climbers do during their entire careers. This includes winning the X Games and a climbing World Cup. She’s also completed an onsight (free-climbing without knowledge of the route) of the northwest face of Yosemite’s Half Dome, and, along with climber Lynn Hill, the first female free ascent of the Leaning Tower.
Brown moved to Berkeley from San Diego last year, in part because of its proximity to Yosemite. “It’s so vast, so awe-inspiring,” she says. “You could climb there your entire life and never get bored.” And while El Cap was part of the reason for her relocation, she also moved to attend the Fashion Institute, with plans to eventually work in the outdoor industry as an apparel designer. “Being a climber is all I’ve ever known,” Brown explains. “It’s wonderful, and I love it, but it leaves you ungrounded. I want a more rooted lifestyle.”
Though it’s hard for mere mortals to imagine an athlete retiring at the top of her game, for Brown there’s no heartache about her decision to make climbing a hobby rather than a profession. “Right now I’m pretty content,” she says. “I’ve climbed where I wanted to climb. I’ve done what I wanted to do. Not everyone can say that.”
Cross Posted From 7×7.com
The National Parks: America’s Best Idea is a six-episode series directed by Ken Burns and written and co-produced by Dayton Duncan coming to PBS in September.
Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature’s most spectacular locales — from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska — The National Parks: America’s Best Idea is nonetheless a story of people: people from every conceivable background — rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy. It is a story full of struggle and conflict, high ideals and crass opportunism, stirring adventure and enduring inspiration – set against the most breathtaking backdrops imaginable.
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