By Grace Toohey From Los Angeles Times Yosemite National Park has made permanent a divisive overnight rock climbing permitting system aimed at protecting wilderness and monitoring visitors as the sport has grown rapidly in popularity. Following a two-year pilot period, the permits are now officially required for those attempting “big wall” climbs like El Capitan…

Meet the toddler who’s been climbing since she was 11 months old and can now scale 52-foot- (approx 15.8-meter-) high walls. Four-year-old Isla Murr, from Sydney, Australia, started to walk at 9 months old, and just two months later, she was up climbing things. Isla’s mom, Lucy Murr, 29, noticed her unusual climbing ability and started…

Last year, my son Kyle and I were invited to join a climbing expedition with my good friend and client, Joe, and his son, Sam. Joe has been training Sam in hopes that he’ll become the youngest person to ever climb the famed El Capitan, a 3,000-foot vertical wall in Yosemite Valley that most consider…