A2 Antelope Valley Press, Sunday, February 28, 2021

Skiers defy death in descent of Yosemite’s Half Dome

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK
(AP) — Two skiers navigated a thin
layer of snow with no margin for
error down the precipitous shoulder
of Half Dome in Yosemite National
Park and alternately skied and rap-
pelled back to the valley floor in an
unusually daring feat.
Jason Torlano, 45, and Zach Mil-
ligan, 40, completed the descent in
five hours Sunday by carefully carv-
ing their way in crusty snow and us-
ing ropes to rappel several sections
of bare rock known as the “death
slabs” beneath the iconic face of Half
Dome, the Fresno Bee reported Thurs-
day.
“If you fall to your left or right,
you’re definitely dead,” said JT
Holmes, a professional free skier who
is a friend of Torlano’s. “If you fall
down the middle, you have a small
chance of not falling to your death —
but it’s a maybe.”
Snowboarder Jim Zellers is be-
lieved to be the first to descend the
800-foot upper section on the shoul-
der of the dome in 2000. But no one
is known to have attempted the entire
4,800-foot descent from peak to valley.
Torlano said he had been dream-
ing about skiing the dome since his
family moved to Yosemite when he
In this photo provided by Jason Torlano, Zach Milligan is shown on his descent down Half Dome in Yosemite
National Park last week. The two men climbed some 4,000 feet to the top of Yosemite’s Half Dome in subfreezing
temperatures and skied down the famously steep monolith to the valley floor.
was five years old.
He first climbed Half Dome as a
youngster, clinging to the same cables
tens of thousands of visitors do every
year to ascend the final steep pitch up
the rounded side of the polished gran-
ite feature. He advanced to become
one of an elite group of climbers
to scale the sheer granite face using
ropes only to catch his fall at least a
ASSOCIATED PRESS
dozen times. He later became a rang-
er in the park.
“It’s just always been there,” Torla-
no told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I’ve
been attracted to Half Dome for as
long as I can remember.”
After also serving a stint in the
Army, he settled down with his wife
and children in a community near Yo-
semite. He specializes in using ropes
to work in high-altitude and danger-
ous settings.
He said he tried to ski down Half
Dome each of the past three years,
but called it off after finding unsuit-
able snow. This year, an early Febru-
ary storm filled Yosemite with fresh
powder, including about two to three
inches of snow at the peak of Half
Dome.
He rented a friend’s small plane
Feb. 19 to study the snow conditions
and possible route before calling Mil-
ligan, a rock climbing buddy, to join
him.
Milligan said he initially planned
to only film Torlano skiing, but decid-
ed to make his own descent by care-
fully side slipping down on skis. He
said things quickly turned dangerous
when he skied over part of one of the
cables and lost control before he used
an ice ax to stop his slide and was able
to right himself.
“I was just trying to stay in control
and stay alive,” Milligan said. “You’re
on that spine and you don’t have a lot
of room for error.”

YOUR SAY
HAVE
AV man killed near downtown taco stand
RESULTS LOS ANGELES (CNS) — of Palmdale, according to the walk with at least one gunshot Two suspects were seen

D
Officials on Saturday released
o you believe in global the name of a 19-year-old man
warming? who was killed in a shooting
near a taco stand in downtown
OUT OF 32 CALLS Los Angeles.
The shooting victim was
identified as Reginald James
Los Angeles County coroner’s
office.
Officers responded to the
400 block of West Eighth
Street, near Hill Street, at
about 12:30 a.m. Friday and
found James down on a side-
wound, according to Lt. Ryan
Rabbett of the Los Angeles
Police Department.
The officers began per-
forming CPR on him, but he
eventually succumbed to his
injuries.
running westbound on Eighth
Street toward Olive Avenue af-
ter the shooting, Rabbett said.
A motive for the shooting
and description of the suspects
were not immediately avail-
able.

17
* There were no hang-ups.
15 Antelope Valley crime blotter
NEXT WEEKS QUESTION:
Crimes reported for February 12, 2021 Source: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department

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Have your say. Call 661-441-6038 and leave a
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question.

LA police probe fire, vandalism

at Japanese Buddhist temple
LOS ANGELES (AP) —
Authorities are investigating a
vandalism and fire at a Bud-
dhist temple in the Little To-
kyo section of downtown Los
Angeles.
Surveillance video caught
a man jumping the security
fences at the Higashi Hon-
ganji Buddhist Temple on
Thursday night, smashing a
12-foot-high glass window
with a rock, yanking a pair
of metallic lanterns off their
concrete bases and lighting
two wooden lantern stands on
fire, the temple’s head priest
told the Los Angeles Times.
“Your first feelings are
those of disappointment and
LAKE LOS ANGELES Avenue K PALMDALE
ASSAULT: 13700 block East Avenue G-8 ASSAULT: Avenue J and Sierra Highway ASSAULT: 38400 block 35th Street East
sadness to see what hap- ROBBERY: 800 block West Avenue K
pened,” said the Rev. Noriaki LANCASTER THEFT FROM VEHICLE: 700 block West Avenue L
BURGLARY: 38600 block Desert View Drive
Ito. “I don’t know the mo- ASSAULT: 43900 block Sandstarr Court THEFT: 1500 block West Avenue H-15 THEFT: 200 block East Avenue S
tives, but it looks like we were ASSAULT: 44100 block Sierra Highway THEFT: 300 block West Avenue I THEFT: 37400 block 37th Street East
targeted. The only relief I ASSAULT: 45300 block Raysack Avenue THEFT: 43300 block 16th Street West THEFT: 38400 block Sixth Street East
find is that no one was hurt.” ASSAULT: Antelope Valley Freeway and VEHICLE THEFT: 43900 block 12th Street West VEHICLE THEFT: 38200 block Hendon Drive

Lady Gaga’s dogs recovered safely after theft, shooting
LOS ANGELES (AP) —
Lady Gaga’s two French bull-
dogs, which were stolen by
thieves who shot and wounded
their walker, were recovered
unharmed Friday, Los Angeles
police said.
A woman brought the
dogs to the LAPD’s Olympic
Community Police Station,
just northwest of downtown,
around 6 p.m, said Capt. Jona-
than Tippet, commanding of-
ficer of the department’s elite
Robbery-Homicide Division.
Lady Gaga’s representative
and detectives went to the sta-
tion and confirmed that they
were the dogs, Tippet said.
The singer is currently in
Rome to film a movie.
The woman who dropped
off the dogs appears to be “un-
involved and unassociated”
with Wednesday night’s attack,
Tippet said.
In a tweet Friday night, the
LAPD said the woman had
found the dogs “and reached
out to Lady Gaga’s staff to re-
turn them.”
Her identity and the loca-
tion where the dogs were found
won’t be disclosed for her safe-
ty and because of the ongoing
investigation, the LAPD said.
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