What a marvelous achievement for Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson who have been climbing the Dawn Wall of Yosemite’s El Capitan, taking 19 days to reach the summit. The rock is huge and smooth, but there might be other reasons why it might not have been scaled before.
I researched the mountain for my science fiction novel Exit, Pursued by a Bee in which alien spheres, buried in the Earth’s crust for two billion years emerge under specific places like El Capitan, Ayers’ Rock and Glastonbury. All of those places have some kind of spiritual significance to ancient peoples, including El Capitan. In my story time is maintained as a linear, continuum on Earth and its vicinity by the alien artifacts that gathered time decoherences. In my research I discovered that a Native American tribe in Yosemite had declared El Capitan to be a haunting place, where mere humans were not permitted to deface. Presumably that kept people from climbing it in the past. Or did it? I also found references to a climb of the rock in the mid-twentieth century, but then there were no TV crews and helicopters to record it. Even so I applaud Tommy and Kevin for the first official recorded climb.
This isn’t the first time that the news reminds me of Exit, Pursued by a Bee. Every now and then mysterious circular holes appear in the landscape – Beijing and South America I recall and blog about it here https://geoffnelder.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/holes-keep-emerging/
Maybe my novel is more Nostradamus than science fiction after all! If you are interested check out Exit, Pursued by a Bee at http://geoffnelder.com/exitbee.htm
