Slacklining

After pulling into Yosemite Valley this past weekend,  I spotted a group of climbers slacklining over the Merced River.  Having tried slacklining a few times myself, and failing to make any progress whatsoever, I can truly appreciate this sport as an art in moving meditation.  Extreme focus, balance, and core strength are a few of the necessary ingredients for mastering this sport.  Add a dash of daring, and you get folks dangling over buildings, mountain tops, or in this case, an incredibly cold river chilled by snow melt.

I gotta love the guy wearing the wetsuit; he seems to be the only one who truly understands the consequence of falling.

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Yosemite Fog

Although I’ve spent the past 12 years rockclimbing in Yosemite Valley, I’ve never bothered to photograph this picturesque place until a few days ago.  Ansel Adams, in a way, had ruined Yosemite for me.  I never felt compelled to capture a place that had already been so well documented by Adams and a gazillion other landscape photographers.  And truth be told, I never thought I could bring Yosemite any justice after seeing Adam’s classic work.

So what changed my mind about photographing Yosemite?  Boredom and the lack of desire to participate in a threesome.  No, silly, I’m not talking about a menage a trois.  I’m back to the topic of rockclimbing.  There’s a time and place for a threesome, but not when you are trad climbing.  Having three people in a traditional climbing party is slow and inefficient, and with the brief amount of daylight these days, I opted out, and allowed my husband and his friend to get more climbing in for themselves.  Yes, I know, I’m a very kind and thoughtful wife. 

So for the first time ever in Yosemite Valley, I got to spend the weekend hiking and exploring, rather than be strapped into a rope and harness.  The weather was surprisingly gorgeous; t-shirt weather in fact, if you happened to be in the sun.  The warm air, and snow-covered ground created an interesting fog layer, and I loved the way it hovered around the trees.  Naturally, this became my photo theme.  Who needs yet another photo of Half Dome and the Nose on El Capitan anyway? 

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