3 comments | At more than 3,000 vertical feet of sheer rock granite, El Capitan is a beacon for visitors, a muse for photographers and one of the world’s ultimate challenges for climbers. Best time to see it? Any day of the year. In winter time the swirling mists of the valley give El Capitan an almost mystical quality. In spring you can enjoy the lush meadows surrounding the base of El Cap and picnic in the shadow of this beautiful giant. | Travel Guide | Facebook

El Capitan: How did the climbers do it?

Charles Winstead was scaling the 3,000-foot granite wall of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley this week when an unfamiliar flapping sound erupted overhead and startled him. BASE jumping, the sport of leaping from fixed objects like buildings or cliffs and then parachuting to the ground, was pioneered in Yosemite National Park in the 1970s. While it has been effectively verboten there since the 1980s, BASE has continued to occur in secret. Read more at the link in our bio. A small group of BASE jumpe