Tom Painter strapped $85,000 worth of scientific equipment to his back and scrambled up the steep, smooth face of Pothole Dome in California's Yosemite National Park. Ravens squawked overhead, and the muffled voices of tourists murmured from the easier route up the 250-foot-high (76 meters) granite dome.
"We're taking the sporting route," said Painter, as he jogged up the pinkish rock. Tan and fit, Painter wasn't slowed by the thin air at 8,700 feet (2,650 meters) or by his 40-pound (18-kilogram) load.
"My two sons like to slide down parts of these granite domes," Painter said. "It rips their pants to shreds."
Painter is a snow scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and he had come to
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