Is the Yosemite Rock Rat Becoming Extinct?

San Francisco Chronicle posted this article a few weeks back, but it has just come to my attention now. It's a look at the lifestyle of the "rock rat", those climbers who live a nomadic life, looking for the next great rock wall to climb. For a long time, Yosemite was considered the Mecca for many of these climbers in North America, with it's big walls, challenging climbs, and rugged wilderness. However, there has been a rise in the area of general rock climbing, sport climbing, and bouldering over the past few years, which has lead to Yosemite becoming overcrowded. This has caused many of the rock rats to begin to avoid the area, and search for other places to climb. The article does a great job with explaining the climbing lifestyle, and how things have changed over the past ten or twenty years as the sport has grown. Lets hope we don't see the rock rats become extinct in Yosemite.