2006-09-10 04:00:00 PDT Yosemite National Park -- Chris Callegari clambered up onto a ledge on the sheer face of a granite cliff above Yosemite Valley, breathed deeply and took in the rugged serenity of the wilderness surrounding him.

The 31-year-old unemployed computer engineer, who has spent much of the summer dirt-bagging it with other rock climbers in Yosemite National Park, has scaled every rock, crag, crack and dome he could find in and around the park. He is part of a tight-knit community of "rock rats" whose counterculture lifestyle goes back more than 70 years.

But their vagabond tradition amid the beauty and danger of this fabled valley is quickly disappearing as an explosion of rock and sport climbing has brought an overflow of people to one of the world's premier climbing spots. Communing with nature is no longer the sport's biggest draw. The new enthusiasts, backed by advertising and sponsorships, often are more interested in fast climbing and spine-tingling risks.

"Sometimes you get this fake sense of being the first one up here," said Callegari, scanning the scenery for a moment before clipping into a bolt set in the rock and preparing to belay his climbing partner. "Then you see all the gear left in the wall. People have been climbing here for so long, there is no way you can go anywhere people haven't been."

Climbers now have to queue up on certain routes in Yosemite. Even El Capitan, once considered impossible to climb, is often so packed with climbers working their way up the dizzying, 3,300-foot-high precipice that teams have to wait on ledges for their turn on a pitch.

And to the dismay of the traditionally nonconformist climbing community, there are more rules. Rangers patrol for climbers who sneak out among the boulders and set up illegal camp sites. There are regulations on what kind of equipment can be used on rocks, and the one-week limit for staying in the valley is strictly enforced.

But longtime climbers say there is a more disturbing trend: The very nature of the sport, and the culture of those who love it, has changed dramatically in the past two decades. In 1987, there was one climbing gym in the United States. Now there are hundreds of them, and millions of Americans who climb.

The pressure to perform daring feats has never been greater, at least among elite climbers who regularly congregate in Yosemite, because the sport has in many respects gone commercial.

It has been depicted recently in everything from antiperspirant commercials to recruitment material for the United States Marine Corps. Photographs of free solo climbs -- those made with only hands and feet and without tethered safety ropes -- are regularly featured in magazines, and most of the top climbers have sponsorship agreements with equipment manufacturers or advertisers who pay to market their image.

The lure of sponsorship money, some climbers say, is pushing some enthusiasts to put themselves at greater risk.

Next month, the famous German climbers Alexander and Thomas Huber are planning an attempt on the speed-climbing record up the immense "Nose" of El Capitan. The effort, which reportedly will cost more than $2 million to stage, will include a full documentary film crew.

The brothers were on a pace to break the 4-year-old record of 2 hours, 48 minutes earlier this year when Thomas injured his back in a fall.

The route, first climbed in 1958 by Warren Harding, Wayne Merry and George Whitmore, is one of the most arduous and dangerous in the world and is an icon for virtually every serious rock climber. It took 47 days to complete the first ascent.

The Nose has since become a kind of racetrack for top-flight climbers, who have been setting, breaking and attempting records for speed-climbing -- done with safety ropes except on rare occasions on less-dangerous climbs -- at an almost unprecedented rate.

Hans Florine, the 42-year-old Lafayette climber who set the speed record in 2002 with Yuri Hirayama, said he is not about to let his record fall without a fight.

"I will rebreak it if they break it," said Florine, whose Web site -- hansflorine.com -- talks about how he is "obsessed with speed" and touts an array of speed-climbing feats and championships.

It is a competition that is fascinating to some and disturbing to others.

Lynn Hill, a 5-foot-1 former gymnast who is considered one of the greatest climbers in the world, said she has great respect for the Huber brothers and Florine, but she is concerned about the recent emphasis on speed, especially on major routes like the Nose.

Hill, 45 of Boulder, Colo., said that to set a record on the Nose -- about 2,900 feet of which is sheer technical climbing -- huge amounts of slack would have to be left in the rope so that both team members could climb at the same time. That essentially means that one slip could result in a long fall from one anchor to the next before the rope catches.

"That's setting up 150-foot falls," said Hill, who is sponsored by a clothing company. "I think it is inviting disaster, and I don't think it's good for climbing."

She is not averse to speed or competition. She has been climbing for 31 years, and in 1993 became the first person to free-climb the Nose -- meaning she climbed the route herself but was protected from falling by anchored ropes and another climber on belay. The next year, she free-climbed it in a single day, a feat still considered one of the greatest athletic achievements by anyone.

"It's one of the hardest athletic climbing feats," Florine said. "If you held the 100-yard dash world record and the marathon record, and you did them both in the same day, you would be free-climbing the Nose in a day. There are some incredible powerful moves that are necessary. It requires amazing concentration, focus, endurance and power."

Such "single push" climbs -- done in one day -- are now the rage in Yosemite. Hill's free-climbing feat was equaled last year by Tommy Caldwell, who did her one better by free-climbing another route on El Cap the same day he scaled the Nose.

Lover's Leap

Most climbing magazines regularly have photographs of people scaling dangerous-looking rock faces with no ropes or protective devices. Such do-or-die climbs made Dan Osman famous.

Osman's light shined brightest when a videotape of his free-solo, speed-climb up a Lake Tahoe cliff known as Lover's Leap circulated widely on the Internet. At one point, he leaped to a precarious handhold 400 feet above the ground.

"We're attracted to seeing that sort of thing. It's a vicarious thrill, but it's kind of perverted," said Hill. "I think he was pushed to some extent by the camera to put his life on the line. It's a price that is not worth it just to provide entertainment for people."

But putting his life on the line was what Osman did, and he found new ways to do it. At one point he began jumping off cliffs attached to climbing ropes. The jumps got longer and longer, using a unique pulley system, until one day when he was trying to break the free-fall record off Yosemite's Leaning Tower, the rope snapped. Osman, 35, was found dead on the rocks more than 1,100 feet below.

There has been talk lately of free-soloing the Nose, which Hill claims would be suicide.

A Frenchman named Alain Robert, known as "Spiderman" for his risky climbs up skyscrapers, including Chicago's Sears Tower, believes he can do it, Hill says. Robert reportedly once offered to scale a cliff for a film crew, while carrying his child on his back. His offer was rejected.

"He asked me which was better to free solo, the Nose or the Salathé Wall (another arduous route up El Capitan)," Hill said. "I told him, 'Neither one. You'll die.' "

There has been rock climbing in Yosemite almost since the valley was discovered by white people in 1851. John Muir climbed the summit block of Cathedral Peak in 1869. But modern-style climbing was not possible until the 1930s, when Dick Leonard imported European pitons -- metal spikes used to anchor ropes to rock -- and began developing specialized belaying techniques.

In 1934, Leonard, Jules Eichorn and Bestor Robinson climbed Higher Cathedral Spire, the first major ascent in a long list of world-renowned Yosemite climbs.

John Salathé, a San Mateo blacksmith, introduced multiday, big-wall climbing. He forged pitons from the axles of Model A Fords, and he and Anton "Ax" Nelson used the new equipment to climb the southwest face of Half Dome in 1946 and the 1,200-foot chimney to the spire known as the Lost Arrow in 1947.

Rock climbing in Yosemite came of age between 1954 and 1975, when the indomitable Warren Harding and purist Royal Robbins ruled the roost. Their competition was mostly friendly, but they had opposing styles.

Harding was a rebel who would deliberately choose the most difficult routes and was not shy about drilling bolts into the granite. Robbins scrutinized the big walls for natural climbing routes to limit the use of bolts and believed climbers should haul out what they brought in.

Robbins ushered in a new era in 1957 when he led the first ascent of Half Dome's northwest face using his new techniques and hauling systems. Not to be outdone, Harding made his famous first climb up the Nose on El Cap the next year. The final push took him 12.5 days. When asked how it felt, he said: "Well, El Capitan seems to be in a lot better shape than I am right now."

Harding endured a great deal of criticism for his use of 125 bolts, large pitons and long lengths of fixed rope. "F -- 'em!" was his mocking response to what he considered silly purist moralizing.

In recent years, Robbins' philosophy has been winning out, but many climbers relate to Harding's nonconformist views.

In 1975, Jim Bridwell, John Long and Billy Westbay made the first one-day ascent of the Nose. Bridwell also founded the park's first search-and-rescue team at Camp 4, where the original rock rats, the hippie-types who wore cutoff jeans, smoked pot and collected cans for pocket change, began hanging out.

Cleaning up

A red dot nearly two-thirds of the way up El Capitan in early August was virtually all anyone on the ground could see of Lincoln Else and three other climbers on the Nose.

Else, who served as the Yosemite National Park climbing ranger for the past six years before taking a break this year, was leading an expedition to clean garbage off the ledges and out of the cracks on this colossal granite wall. The dot nearly 2,000 feet up was his big red bag of debris.

"The climbing community has gotten so much better about cleaning up over the years, but the Nose is so popular," said Else when he returned to terra firma. "We carried about 40 pounds off the route and about 5 pounds off the summit. We found garbage, climbing equipment, clothing, paper and whatnot, including plenty of excrement."

Else's work is one of several positive things going on in the Yosemite rock climbing community. Ken Yager has collected dozens of old pitons and other artifacts and is trying to set up a rock climbing history museum. Other climbers are leading efforts to improve safety by replacing old anchors and bolts with new gear on long-established climbing routes.

The community's greatest political triumph occurred when climber Tom Frost and lawyer Dick Duane filed a lawsuit over the park's plan to develop Camp 4 after a flood in 1997. The suit eventually led to Camp 4's designation in the National Register of Historic Places. There are now plans to double its size.

Duane believes the climbing community remains strong, despite commercialization and crowding.

"The elite level has constantly pushed the boundaries, but beneath that there is a whole level of ordinary climbers, and Camp 4 is the community center for them," said Duane, 68, of Berkeley, referring to the traditional home base for climbers in woods near Yosemite Lodge. "That culture is rich, alive and well."

The climbing boom may have helped to legitimize the sport's practitioners, whose generally unkempt look was barely tolerated in the valley for many years.

"There is a growing responsibility among climbers," said Else, "and a growing recognition in the park service that climbing is a legitimate and important way of experiencing Yosemite."

Not everyone agrees with that statement, but Callegari said there is a kinship among climbers and a joie de vivre about the sport that cannot be extinguished. He can feel it beating in his heart, he said, whenever he is on a mountain sweating, focused and straining against the force of nature.

"When you are up here," he said, his face red and glistening with sweat after finishing a difficult climb up a small crack, "everything else just fades away."