To Live Beneath Half Dome

Above: Yosemite Valley: The Tunnel View Lookout Point of El Capitan, Bridalveil Falls and Half Dome.

"I guess I’ve always had a little monkey in me," Jason Price says. On the way to camp, Jason sees some people climbing and he convinces his dad to pull over. "I conned him into letting me ask if I could climb, and they let me tie into a swami belt and I managed to shimmy up on a 5’7, it was like a hard jungle gym "

Thirty years later, Jason lives in the Yosemite Valley, for all practical purposes the center of the climber's world, and by some measures the world's most beautiful space. I met Jason briefly in the valley, and I then I told my wife, "I want to know what life is like for people who live there." A week later, I call Jason and ask him how it all happened.

He says, "I was going to school full time, taking summer sessions and going to school year round. I was burned out. I was pursuing three different majors, but I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. I took leisure management, which is like studying to manage health spas. Geology had really interested me, and then I was also studying microbiology."

Facing the option of a master's degree, Jason decided to bail and take a summer off, to climb for a while in Yosemite, to think about what he wanted to do. Time passed, and, "Then I worked at Walmart for three years and had been coming out to climb and fiddle around. By my third year at Walmart, my friend Mark said, why don't you just apply at the Ahwahnee?"

The Ahwahnee is a giant and unusually beautiful hotel in the Yosemite Valley. It was built in 1927 in an exotic blend of frontiersmen, Middle-Eastern and Native American decor.

He says, "They tell me, I can come in, take a piss test and if I make it, i'm hired. I called my boss at Walmart and gave my notice. I tied up some loose ends, found a place for my dogs to live and soon enough I was here."

Jason is one of those people who wants to share everything with anybody about living in Yosemite and climbing the great walls of the Valley. He shares stories with parents and children alike. Of his move, he says, "It was one of the scariest things I ever did and the best thing I ever did for myself. It seems like whenever I took a risk the benefits were gigantic. There is this book called Road Trip Nation. It's just amazing what that book says."

Road Trip Nation is all about telling everybody off who tells you to be a lawyer or a doctor. The book follows two young men on a trip across the country, making a living their own way.

I ask Jason if he's become numbed to the beauty of the valley.

He laughs at this. "Every time I go home to Fresno, the city life drives me nuts. I just hate it, and every time I come back from Oakhurst, you come through the tunnel and you get your first views of El Cap and Half Dome. There are times I come around that bend and there is weather and light I've never seen before. The lighting in the Valley, it's just...different. How green everything is. I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world."

About the climbers in the Valley, Jason says, "There is a collective consciousness to the group. Its like a fraternity of climbers, you don’t need to be the best in the world, but its just an aura. In the climbing world the best are considered like Gods. Legendary Climber Ron Kauk has an aura and I remember the gaga effect when I met him. Like all those climbers, he is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and he is genuinely interested in what you’ve been up to that day."

I tell him about how the surfing community in Los Angeles is known to sometimes act violently towards each other. I told him about having my tires slashed for surfing on someone else's territory.

To this he says, "In Yosemite, you can leave your gear and everything will be there when you get back down. The climbing community is very trustworthy. We look like dirtbags and monkeys but climbers are trustworthy, are intelligent and have a good head on their shoulders."

Jason climbs five days a week. Just a few weeks ago, he ascended El Capitan, the classic climbing face, in twenty-two hours. Technically, that makes him one of the top climbers in the world. Generally, climbers will sleep overnight on the the cliff face for four to six days before making the top.

I ask him how he manages to stay alert for that long. "You know," he says, "You're constantly moving, always doing something. At one point, I pulled up on the ledge and I’m sitting there for a few seconds catching my breath, and my climbing partner says, "What are you doing! I didn’t clip you into the powerpoint so you can sit there and rest!"