Here's an awesome slideshow and voice-over narrative of El Cap's first ascent narrated by Wayne Merry, one of the three climbers who accomplished the feat. The rudimentary gear they were using astonishes me – and scares the crap out of me. These guys had some serious cajones.
Via The Atlantic: 

There seems to be some sort of stigma in the US attached to the idea of guided climbing. It must be something related to our collective sense of individualism (how’s that for a conundrum?). Americans seem to think that hiring a guide is somehow a cop

Of course I’m pretty sure that the actual top 10 climbing towns are all in California and Nevada, but here’s a list of runners-up in the September issue of Rock & Ice. To be fair, they did include South Lake Tahoe. So they’re not totally off.

My plan was to get out of the office early on friday night – say
4:30 or 5:00. Didn’t work out that way. Some things went down at work
and I ended up in meetings until aroun 6:00 or so. I grabbed the bus
home and realized I had no idea wh