With each step on the trail this weekend, Theresa Ho is making giant strides to overcome a nightmare trek at Yosemite National Park. She was crushed by a boulder and broke her back, several ribs and right fibula, punctured her right lung and sustained scrapes, tears and crush wounds.

Corbett had carried his friend, 29-year-old Mark Wellman, to the base of El Capitan. But Wellman would have to pull his own weight — three quarters of a mile — practically straight up.

It had been seven years since Mark Wellman made his last climb. He was on his way down when he slipped on some gravel and plummeted into a crevasse.

Wellman dangled at 13,000 feet, wedged in a crack with a broken back, for 30 hours. “I remember I couldn’t wait until the sun came up to warm me up,” he recalls.

His legs were paralyzed, but his spirit was not. Wellman bounced back and took a job as a ranger in Yosemite National Park. He began to dream of climbing again.

The National Park Service has announced that after six years of collaborative negotiations, they have finalized and signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Access Fund.

The newly signed MOU frames a cooperative relationship between the climbing community and the National Park Service. It outlines the common interests that the parties share — such as conservation and planning — as well as how they will work together to reach common goals.