This week, we’re profiling longtime Yosemite climber Mecia Serafino, Director of Outreach and Digital Content at Friends of YOSAR.

This week, we feature former Yosemite local, Ben Zartman, and his cross-country tour, as well as lots of Yosemite news updates!

This week, we’re profiling Langstyn Avery, founder of Negus in Nature, which “connects Black people to the joy of being outdoors,” says their website. Avery emceed this year’s Yosemite Facelift event.

This week, we’re featuring former Yosemite resident turned fine artist Forest Stearns.

Yosemite Facelift kicks off today in the park! 🚮♻️

This week, we’re profiling Merced local and frequent Yosemite climber Maggie Sogin. For the past several years, Sogin, her husband Pat, and I have climbed many times throughout the park, from Arch Rock to Lower Yosemite Falls Amphitheater to Lower Cathedral Rock West.

Lots of Yosemite news in this week’s newsletter!

We have two features this week: YCA founder Ken Yager’s origin story, and an interview with Steve West—the Southern California/Joshua Tree climber from the 1970s–80s who helped bring Boreal’s sticky-rubber shoes to the U.S. with John Bachar and later served as Boreal’s U.S. distributor/rep.

This week brings two feature stories in Q&A format with Emily Harrington and New York Times climate correspondent, David Gelles.

For this week’s feature story, we spoke with Eastside photographer Vern Clevenger about his upcoming coffee-table book, due out this winter.

On Sunday, August 24, IMAX is releasing a one-night-only screening of Girl Climber at 100 theaters across the U.S., featuring five-time National Champion Emily Harrington and her quest to free El Cap’s Golden Gate.

Dave Sessions has me on the phone as he wolfs down a bowl of spicy curry at a Thai food joint somewhere in Salt Lake City. He’s celebrating the near-completion of his new book. Regarding the soon-to-be-released e-book, Tuolumne Climbs: “It’s not a select guide, I don’t really like select guides, but it’s not an encyclopedia either — it’s 650 routes, a lifetime’s worth of climbing in Tuolumne. It covers all the great routes on the domes and doesn’t get into the peaks or the backcountry.”

Over six years, Olsen evolved from a Yosemite concession worker to a photographer documenting top climbers—including Kevin Jorgeson, Sasha DiGiulian, and Molly Mitchell—as well as the Valley’s highlining and rope-jumping scenes. He learned photography through a high school elective and mentorship from Yosemite, and through constant trial and error.

For this week’s feature, we spoke with longtime Tuolumne climber Dave Yerian. Museum curator Nansi Wilson often mentions Dave’s decades-deep love for the Meadows when I visit, and I ran into him again at the Mark Chapman memorial in May. Yerian has also been posting about the upcoming 44th anniversary of the Bachar-Yerian on Medlicott Dome.

This week, we interviewed Kate Kelleghan to learn more about the video she’s co-producing with climbing partner Laura Pineau on their ascent of the Yosemite Triple Crown—Mt. Watkins, El Cap, and Half Dome in fewer than 24 hours.

This week, we have news of even more speed climbing, a death on the Royal Arches, and a GoFundMe for a climber undergoing an amputation.

This week’s news brief addresses the current and timely issue we are facing with the proposed sale of public lands. Chris Van Leuven will be back with Yosemite News next week!

With mid-June heat settling over Yosemite Valley, many climbers are escaping to higher elevations in Tuolumne or farther south to Shuteye Ridge.

The speed-climbing season is in full swing in Yosemite, with several teams ticking huge link ups in rapid times.

Hot temps, park traffic, and Jordan Cannon tells us about his recent original Salathé Wall free ascent…

So much has happened in Yosemite this past week. On the Big Stone, Freerider was flashed—in a single push of 22 hours, 16 minutes—by Will Moss, marking only the second-ever flash of an El Cap route and the first completed in a day.

Rather than spotlighting a single climber or route, this week’s feature will weave together both headline ascents: Pietro Vidi’s repeat of Lurking Fear and Jordan Cannon’s full free of the Salathé Wall with its notorious 5.13c pitch 19.