2015年1月15日 星期四

Climbers didn't 'conquer' Yosemite By John D. Sutter, CNN



http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/15/opinion/sutter-climb-yosemite-el-capitan/index.html




Climbers didn't 'conquer' Yosemite
Updated 2218 GMT (0618 HKT) January 15, 2015
Jorgeson climbs on Wednesday, January 7.Show Caption
10 of 18Jorgeson looks at his hands during a break in the climb. Show Caption
11 of 18Caldwell looks up the Dawn Wall during a break. Show Caption
12 of 18Caldwell works his way up a portion of the wall on Saturday, January 3.Show Caption
13 of 18Caldwell eats dinner during a break on Monday, December 29.Show Caption
14 of 18Caldwell ascends what is known as pitch 10 on Tuesday, December 28.Show Caption
15 of 18Caldwell sets up camp on December 28.Show Caption
16 of 18Before starting their climb, Jorgeson, left, and Caldwell prepare their gear on Saturday, December 27. Jorgeson didn't know Caldwell until he decided to join him on the climb.Show Caption
17 of 18The Dawn Wall has few footholds and may be the most difficult climb in the world.Show Caption
18 of 18Free climbers Tommy Caldwell, left, and Kevin Jorgeson embrace Wednesday, January 14, after reaching the top of El Capitan, a 3,000-foot rock formation in California's Yosemite National Park. They are the first to successfully climb El Capitan's Dawn Wall using only their hands and feet.Show Caption
1 of 18Caldwell celebrates after finishing the climb, which took more than two weeks. The Dawn Wall is more than a half-mile high.Show Caption
2 of 18Caldwell, bottom, watches Jorgeson as they work their way up the Dawn Wall on Monday, January 12.Show Caption
3 of 18Caldwell, in yellow, stands with a photographer at a base camp before continuing to climb on January 12. Caldwell and Jorgeson had ropes designed to catch them if they fell. Show Caption
4 of 18Caldwell climbs on Sunday, January 11. He had already completed five other routes on El Capitan, but family members said the Dawn Wall route consumed him.Show Caption
5 of 18A close-up of Jorgeson's hands on Saturday, January 10.Show Caption
6 of 18Caldwell, in red, climbs while cameramen record him on Thursday, January 8.Show Caption
7 of 18While two people record him from above, Jorgeson celebrates finishing a portion of his climb on January 8.Show Caption
8 of 18The climbers have expressed the adventure's joys and heartaches through various social media accounts.Show Caption
9 of 18Jorgeson climbs on Wednesday, January 7.Show Caption
10 of 18Jorgeson looks at his hands during a break in the climb. Show Caption
11 of 18Caldwell looks up the Dawn Wall during a break. Show Caption
12 of 18Caldwell works his way up a portion of the wall on Saturday, January 3.Show Caption
13 of 18Caldwell eats dinner during a break on Monday, December 29.Show Caption
14 of 18Caldwell ascends what is known as pitch 10 on Tuesday, December 28.Show Caption
15 of 18Caldwell sets up camp on December 28.Show Caption
16 of 18Before starting their climb, Jorgeson, left, and Caldwell prepare their gear on Saturday, December 27. Jorgeson didn't know Caldwell until he decided to join him on the climb.Show Caption
17 of 18The Dawn Wall has few footholds and may be the most difficult climb in the world.Show Caption
18 of 18Free climbers Tommy Caldwell, left, and Kevin Jorgeson embrace Wednesday, January 14, after reaching the top of El Capitan, a 3,000-foot rock formation in California's Yosemite National Park. They are the first to successfully climb El Capitan's Dawn Wall using only their hands and feet.Show Caption
1 of 18Caldwell celebrates after finishing the climb, which took more than two weeks. The Dawn Wall is more than a half-mile high.Show Caption
2 of 18Caldwell, bottom, watches Jorgeson as they work their way up the Dawn Wall on Monday, January 12.Show Caption
3 of 18Caldwell, in yellow, stands with a photographer at a base camp before continuing to climb on January 12. Caldwell and Jorgeson had ropes designed to catch them if they fell. Show Caption
4 of 18Caldwell climbs on Sunday, January 11. He had already completed five other routes on El Capitan, but family members said the Dawn Wall route consumed him.Show Caption
5 of 18A close-up of Jorgeson's hands on Saturday, January 10.Show Caption
6 of 18Caldwell, in red, climbs while cameramen record him on Thursday, January 8.Show Caption
7 of 18While two people record him from above, Jorgeson celebrates finishing a portion of his climb on January 8.Show Caption
8 of 18The climbers have expressed the adventure's joys and heartaches through various social media accounts.Show Caption
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Story highlights
  • Rock climbers complete one of the world's most difficult routes
  • Climber on Twitter: We didn't "conquer" the mountain
  • John Sutter says that's a healthy way to look at nature
Editor's note: John D. Sutter is a columnist for CNN Opinion and creator of CNN's Change the List project. Follow him on TwitterFacebook or Instagram. Email him at ctl@cnn.com. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.(CNN)Like anyone with an Instagram account, I've been captivated in recent weeks by the insane-and-pioneering efforts of two men attempting to free climb a vertical rock face at Yosemite National Park.
On Wednesday, the climbers, Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell, became the first people in the world to free climb the "Dawn Wall" route of Yosemite's El Capitan face. It's a path marked by "pebble-size holds," according to the New York Times, so sharp they'll make your fingers bleed. Like, literally will make your fingers bleed. Check out this photo from Jorgeson's Instagram account. He reportedly sanded and super-glued the ends of his fingers to try to make them strong enough to grip the nearly sheer face of rock.

It's one of the hardest climbing routes in the world.
Which is why Jorgeson and Caldwell, who started the journey on December 27, and who slept in tents tacked to the vertical face, could be forgiven for thinking that they "conquered" this route, or this mountain.
But, thankfully, that's not how they see it.
Here's what Jorgeson had to say on Twitter:

It's about "realizing a dream." Competing with yourself. Achieving the impossible. Being struck by the awesomeness of nature, as it's clear the pair often were, based on their social media posts.
But certainly not about "conquering" it.
That's a refreshing opinion in the age of fracking and mountain-top removal.
We live in a culture that tends to nature as a thing to be subverted and used, not respected. Jorgeson and Caldwell's epic ascent of the Dawn Wall should be a reminder of how small we humans are in the face of the natural world -- and also of how much we tiny humans can accomplish with enough hard work.
The problem is that most of our efforts are misplaced.
Rather than seeking to understand and explore the many uncharted parts of the world -- the 95% of the ocean that is unseen by humans, for example -- we extract capital. We drill deeper wells into the ground, sucking out water at such an unsustainable rate that California's Central Valley is sinking. Elsewhere, we inject wastewater into the land as part of the process of pulling out oil and natural gas. These injections, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, contribute to earthquakes in odd places like Oklahoma.
We've turned farms into factories. Animals are bigger-fatter-tastier products, not living things. Or, worse, they're status symbols, as in illegal rhino horn orpangolin meat.
The drop in the price of oil has slowed some efforts to go after the hardest-to-get energy sources, like oil hidden below the ocean floor, and underneath more than a mile of water.
But it hasn't changed this ethic -- this core belief, which you can link back to the Bible if you wish, that humans have "dominion" over the world, that it's ours to rule and/or plunder as we choose.
There are, however, signs this mindset is changing.
New theories suggest we can and should live in partnership with the natural world -- removing dams from rivers, and letting them run free into the flood plain; harnessing energy from the wind, not from deep beneath the ocean. The Patagonia documentary "DamNation" gives a sense of this seismic shift.The Yosemite climbers offer hope, as well.
"Free climbs are puzzles," wrote Andrew Bisharat for National Geographic. "The harder the movements get -- twisting, stretching, lunging, swinging, dangling -- the more painstaking the process of solving the puzzle becomes."
The world is a puzzle to be solved -- an adventure to be had.
The rest of us would benefit from seeing it that way, too.
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