Climbers didn’t ‘conquer’ Yosemite

On Wednesday, the climbers, Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell, became the first people in the world to free climb the “Dawn Wall” route of Yosemite’s El Capitan face. It’s a path marked by “pebble-size holds,” according to the New York Times, so sharp they’ll make your fingers bleed. Like, literally will make your fingers bleed. Check out this photo from Jorgeson’s Instagram account. He reportedly sanded and super-glued the ends of his fingers to try to make them strong enough to grip the nearly sheer face of rock.

A photo posted by Kevin Jorgeson (@kjorgeson) on Jan 10, 2015 at 6:21am PST

It’s one of the hardest climbing routes in the world.

And these guys did it without the aid of ropes. (Except those that prevented them from careening to their death at the bottom of the 3,000-foot route).

The rest of us would benefit from seeing it that way, too.

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