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A wildlife biologist at Yosemite National Park was fired after draping a transgender pride flag from El Capitan. Dr Shannon Joslin, who holds a PhD in genomics and studies bats, was fired from the park earlier this month following the stunt on May 20 of this year. The 35-year-old, who is nonbinary, and six other climbers, unfurled the 55-by-35 foot pink and blue flag one third of the way up the iconic granite monolith. In doing so Joslin had 'failed to demonstrate acceptable conduct', the park's acting deputy superintendent Danika Globokar said in their termination letter. The day after the...

Yosemite National Park fired a park ranger last week for hanging a transgender pride flag on the park’s iconic El Capitan rock formation in May. Shannon “SJ” Joslin, who has been a ranger and a wildlife biologist in the park since 2021, said they were fired Aug. 12 from what they described as their dream job. They said park leadership told them they “failed to demonstrate acceptable conduct” in their role by participating in the trans flag display. “I’m devastated,” said Joslin, who is trans and uses they/them pronouns. “We don’t take our positions in the park service to make...

Visitors to Yosemite National Park got more than they expected when a rockslide came off the east side of El Capitan on Monday, originating very close to the park’s famous firefall. The tail end of the incident —– which happened at about 11:45 a.m. — was captured on video by photographer James Piper. In the video, the sound of crashing rocks can be heard echoing across the valley as smoke, debris and dust fill the air at the base of the iconic El Capitan. "Holy God," a man in the background can be heard saying. Link to video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1627900010909306882

It took roughly four hours Saturday for rock climber Alex Honnold to make an ascent so dangerous no one has ever tried it before: scaling Yosemite’s El Capitan with no rope. Some called it a suicide mission. El Capitan is 3,000 feet of vertical granite, jutting straight to the sky. Many of its cracks are so small, they fit only one finger. “I mean, there are BASE-jumping stunts that require you to be ‘on’ for 20 seconds,” said Chris McNamara, a Lake Tahoe climber who spent many years diving and parachuting off giant rocks. “And then there’s tightrope-walking between the...

Microsoft admits that users of its Office for Mac 2016 suite are encountering frequent crashes and is working with Apple on a fix. 'We are working closely with Apple to resolve this issue,' says company manager. Microsoft has acknowledged that users of its Office for Mac 2016 application suite are encountering frequent crashes and implied that it's working on a fix, but offered no timeline for delivering an update. In an emailed statement, a Microsoft spokeswoman said the company is looking into the problem. "We know that some users may be experiencing issues with Office 2016 for Mac running on...

After about a day and a half, trying to stop a "NexDef requires Java SE6 Runtime" notice hoping up every 10 Seconds, and Java JRE-8u60 download not completing (but saying and verifying as completed), I finally got rid of the problem. FIRST: I HIGHLY RECOMMEND BEFORE YOU UPGRADE FROM OS X YOSEMITE, to El Capitan, you follow the instructions I found at the bottom of Page 1 of this link . But I stopped at step 6 and did NOT do Steps 7, or Step 8. Here are those directions, which state: violins27 May 26, 2013 5:56 PM Re:...

Explanation: Towering 3,000 feet from base to summit, the famous granite face of El Capitan in Earth's Yosemite National Park just hides the planet's north celestial pole in this skyscape. Of course, the north celestial pole is at the center of all the star trails. Their short arcs reflecting the planet's daily rotation on its axis are traced in a digital stack of 36 sequential exposures. Linear trails of passing airplane navigation lights and a flare from car lights along the road below are also captured in the sequential stack. But the punctuated trail of light seen against the sheer...

Rangers Begin Dramatic Rescue at Yosemite BEN MARGOT /Associated Press YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - Rangers attempted a dramatic helicopter rescue Thursday of two climbers on a snowy mountain and struggled to remove the ice-encrusted bodies of two Japanese hikers after an unexpected early blizzard swept through the Sierras. The deaths occurred on El Capitan, a 3,200-foot granite mountain at Yosemite National Park, following a fierce blizzard that stranded nearly two dozen hikers and climbers across Northern California. Other than the two deaths, all of them were found or rescued. "Oh, thank God, thank God. This is the greatest day...

2 Japanese climbers found dead on Yosemite Thursday, October 21, 2004 at 12:55 JST LOS ANGELES — Two Japanese climbers were found dead Wednesday on a mountain in Yosemite National Park in California, a park ranger said. The two — a man and a woman — died after being trapped near the peak of the 2,300-meter El Capitan, a famous rock-climbing spot, due to a blizzard, the ranger said. Their bodies have yet to be recovered. (Kyodo News)