Monday 15 July 2013

Kiama's Charm - no.5

On our first day at Yosemite National Park we visited the base of El Capitan, a favourite challenge for rock climbers. It's about about 900 metre (3000 feet) and it looks incredible steep and scary to me.
With our binoculars we could see several climbers 2/3 on the way. We learned from other onlookers that it would take them 5 days to get from the base to the summit.


I wondered if Kiama would have ever got into rock climbing, as she loved challenges and the excitement of pushing her own boundaries. She had been several times during her life in hospital with minor injuries, so there was always some weariness in the back of our mind. Looking on the web I  found out that a 28 year old British climber died in a climbing accident, less then 10 days before we arrived there.  My heart goes out to his family.



El Capitan faces Cathedral Rock with this beautiful but very cold river at it's base. Kiama would definitely not have resisted this for a plunge, so we had to find a place somewhere here for the next charm.


To the right of the river lays this beautiful meadow, where John saw a little pink flag on a metal stick.



It was a scientific marker and, as it obviously need to draw attention to someone working in the park, we decided to place the charm next to it on a wooden stick we found.




It is close to the river with Cathedral Rock rising up behind the trees and El Capitan at the back of the viewer.



I hope the bears, deer, coyotes and any other wildlife will leave it undisturbed for a human to find before winter sets in.

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