Climbing the 3,000-foot vertical rock El Capitan in Yosemite may sound like a nearly impossible extreme sport, but for Ken Yager, it’s a way to relax and be centered. He described to Epoch TV’s Bay Area Innovators how he feels about scaling cliffs.
“I get a focus up there like I’ve never had before,” said Yager, who has been climbing for 53 years. “So you kind of get three benefits from it. One is peace and quiet and a little tranquility, and it puts you in a really good head space, especially from the hustle and bustle of working or in the city. And then you’ve got this exercise, just fantastic exercise that’s kind of a combination of pushing and pulling and exercise and stretching. And then the third component would be problem solving. In other words, you’ve got to be a bit of an engineer up there and figure out how to climb the thing. So you’re kind of dealing with all three things simultaneously, which makes it really unique.”…