Girl Climber: Emily Harrington’s Ascent Beyond Limits

0:00People don't often realize that rock climbing is all about failure. We get so good at failing because essentially all we do is fall. It really is just kind of about the struggle and it's about the failure. And we get really good at that. We're all climbing some type of mountain in our life, aren't we, Emily? Just some of us are doing it figuratively. You're literally climbing freaking mountains. Another cool and kind of unique part of the film is the highlighting of partnership and the highlighting of the support. You have to have someone on the other end of that rope. And so they're literally holding your life in their hands.

0:34Like you need someone up there that you trust, that has the skills that you do, that kind of knows you and knows how you operate. I just had the best team ever to support me. And I think that that's like this huge part of what made it all happen for me.

0:53Hey, everybody, I got Emily Harrington with me here right now. And this girl is an absolute badass. She has a documentary come out in IMAX called Girl Climber. And let me tell you, I had the opportunity to sneak peek this bad boy. I was sitting on the edge of my seat, almost having anxiety of what she was able to do and the things that she does in her life. We have a true badass again on our show. And quite honestly, guys, when we talk about the Determined Society and determination being the brand, well, she's the epitome of it. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. I'm excited too, man.

1:27this has been a long time coming. We've been back and forth with our schedules and we're here now though. We're here. We're doing it. We're here. Your documentary. And again, I know it's coming out and we don't want to give a lot of spoilers, right? But literally riveting. And the thing that I enjoyed most about your, your story was your openness into who you are and the things that you struggled with and the fight to achieve what you achieved. I just, I want to edify you there really quickly because you really inspired me. My wife watched this documentary with me and so did my 11 year old son and they hold very high respect for you.

2:14I thought you should know that. Well, thank you so much. Yeah. That's kind of like the best feedback that you can get. It is a super vulnerable film. There's a lot of big feelings. And I think people do really, they, they connect with that side of it because it's not often shown in a lot of these like sports documentaries. That's the thing that I really enjoyed though, Emily, is because it was different than everything else. Like we can go and we can watch documentaries on all the flashy, winnable things and moments to be like, wow, this is really cool. But you touched on such a human element, right?

2:49Just from your childhood, the things that you struggled with, the perception of you, even just to the point where like, hey, this is mostly it's a guys club, right? And you have fought through that to show girls everywhere, women everywhere that no matter what the goal is, that they can achieve it as long as they put in the work and they are intentional when they do it. And so it was just, it was an awesome, awesome film. Thank you so much. Yeah. I really appreciate that. Absolutely. How much is it for you? Dude, I know. I felt like I've experienced it with you, right? That whole hour and 32 minutes or whatever.

3:27I'm like, yeah, we're besties now. I know her. I get this. I'm feeling your whole journey, the emotion of it. And again, I'm going to work really hard not to spoil this for people, but I think that, and I know that once it's out and people actually consume it and watch it, they're going to know exactly what I'm talking about. But I have a question for you because it's something that, you know, for me, is one of, it's very easy for me and it may not have always been that way, but man, you live with such vulnerability and you're putting it out there. Was that easy for you? Or is there like a moment where you're like, man, I don't know if I want to share this?

4:07you know it's a question i get a lot and i think it's interesting because it wasn't difficult because i the filmer my friend john glassberg he was like one of my best friends and so we just been through so much together and so to me it was like i was just being vulnerable in the in front of this person who i trusted and you know i was just being me i was really present and involved in the project and also you know when someone's pointing a camera in your face especially like when you're climbing what's going through your mind is not like oh someday this is going to be on like an imax screen like nobody thinks that i mean i knew that for sure i knew that john had like a dream of making a feature doc but like we all have dreams right like oftentimes they don't pan out like you know in my mind i was like oh this could be like a little YouTube short for one of my sponsors.

5:01But yeah, I don't really have that much of an issue with it. I also think like in society, it's generally a little bit more accepted for women to show emotion and to be vulnerable and stuff like that. I hope that that's changing now. But yeah, I didn't have quite as many hangups as people might've assumed. Yeah, it was just kind of being me. It was very raw. I mean, there's times where I'm like, I'm sitting there because we watch it, you know, in our bed, I'm like the anxiety that I had, I'm afraid of heights. I don't think there's any secret people that listen to my show. I'm like, if I'm on a sixth floor of a condo, my kids are like, look, I'm like, Hey, get back.

5:43Like, Hey, come here. Like I'm like, Hey, why don't you step back a little bit? I went to, to see the things that you do is just, I it's, it's mind blowing to me, to be quite honest. Yeah. I mean, I think most people, a lot of people have that reaction. I think the interesting thing is like, I also have that experience when I'm dealing with exposure. Like I don't like standing on edges. I don't like being on the edge of El Cap without a rope on like it. I totally get the like weird, like anxiety exposure feeling. I think when I'm like facing the wall and actually on the wall it it for some reason it's a different experience for me um and because i'm just so accustomed to like climbing and the feeling of climbing and having control um it doesn't affect me as much but i i too have that like fear of exposure and that fear of height and like if i think too much about it then i can like get overwhelmed by like that very human fear like humans aren't really we're supposed to have that response when we're high up Like it's your brain telling you that there's like something dangerous happening and you should like take a step back.

6:56So I, too, have that reaction. And I think that's also why the film is so relatable to people is I talk a lot about how how scary it is up there and how afraid I am. And I think a lot of people might think that I'm not afraid and that I just like don't even think about it. But I do quite often, actually. I mean, you know, it's like one of those things that you mentioned, you know, when you're facing the wall, you know, you're kind of desensitized because you're looking at the wall and you're actively engaged. Right. But when you get up, it's a little bit different. You're like, okay, I don't want to be, I want to be at the edge of this without a rope.

7:32How much of it, and some of the things that I guess I'm just going to come flat out and ask you, because some of the things that I was going through, like, well, how do they know that rope is strong? Like if she falls on a certain pitch like how do we know this is going to how does she know that this is going to hold her you know i mean it's the same it's the same reason you know that your airplane isn't going to fall out of the sky like you don't know exactly why but it doesn't and you trust you trust the system like i mean these things have been tested and rated and they go through like massive testing and they can hold far more than body weight far more loads than like a person falling i've actually like hauled someone's van out of a ditch using a climbing rope you have yeah yeah um that was actually like a very visual example of how strong the ropes are like i just watched it like stretch stretch stretch stretch and then like eventually the van started moving and i was like wow that was really impressive that's wild man that's crazy so we have a lot of faith in our equipment Yeah, we have like a ton of faith in our equipment.

8:38They're tested a lot. And like, it's like above and beyond, you know, like modern, modern equipment, modern technology. It's just like any other sport. Like it is very, very bomber. Well, yeah, absolutely. It's great. It's great support, right? You got to trust your technology. But the other thing that I really enjoyed about the doc is your, is your amount of support from human beings. Your, your support in your climb of LCAP. he said something man that i mean of course that everybody you know most people know who he is uh but he said something to you on your first try you said i'm giving it all i i can right now and he goes but are you like it feels kind of worky to me and then he's like of course you can you just get in and engage get in and engage and i stopped the video i go bobby did you hear that my son like did you did you did you pick up on that and he goes no i go i rewound it like five different times that was such an impactful point for me and it brought me in even further awesome yeah i mean i think that another cool and kind of unique part of the film is the the highlighting of partnership and the highlighting of the support uh climbing can seem like such an individual sport because you just see one person on the wall.

9:58But especially for me, I'm a free climber. So I use a rope and I use protection. You have to have someone on the other end of that rope. And so they're literally holding your life in their hands. But then also there is that like emotional side of things. And that can be so, so crucial with a project like that. Like you need someone up there that you trust, that has the skills that you do, that kind of knows you and knows how you operate. And for me, I just had like the best team ever to support me. And I think that that's like this huge part of, of what made it all happen for me was the, their, their emotional support more than anything.

10:38Yeah. And you can see that in the film. I mean, really, and you can, you can see how it works in your life. I mean, heck when you went on that, that first climb in Nepal. Like that's where you met your husband. Yeah. Right. Like that was really cool. Yeah. We met on Mount Everest, which was crazy and totally changed my life. And, um, yeah, that was like one of the most important turning points of my life, not because it was Mount Everest particularly, but because I met and connected with these people who turned out to be super influential in my life. One being Adrian, my now husband, and the other being Hillary Nelson, who was just such a mentor to me throughout my career.

11:20Yeah. She passed away, correct? Yeah. Is she the one that passed away? Yeah. She passed away in an accident in 2022 on a mountain called Monteslu, which is the eighth tallest mountain in the world. But she was so important to me as a woman and as a mother and as a professional athlete in this world, being a woman and wanting to continue my career past motherhood. she just had a huge impact on me and I think you know countless other men and women well it was really nice to see how your friendship and your connection evolved you know through that film you know she was very open about you know the early goings and then like again I don't want to ruin it so I'm being kind of you know cryptic here but a little vague you just see that yeah very vague but there listen to the audience like hey and this is by design I can't be too direct.

12:14Just to see that and watch that unfold was absolutely beautiful. Thank you. Yeah. We had an amazing, amazing friendship. Yeah. So you met your husband on Mount Everest and you guys climbed Cote Epoxy together in Ecuador and got married in Ecuador. And my wife is from Ecuador and I was just there in July for the very first time oh awesome we love ecuador it's maybe my favorite country um we have so many friends there my husband owns a guide company that they guide mountains all over the world including mount everest and the majority of the international guides are from ecuador because they just as you probably know they have such a like deep mountain culture um and they're incredibly talented and And it's just, yeah, we got married there because we both love it so, so much.

13:08And we did. We climbed Cotopoxy. I think I've climbed Cotopoxy. I've climbed Cotopoxy twice, attempted three times, and I've skied it twice. So have you done it? No. So what I wasn't expecting, all right, so when we got to Ecuador, and again, my favorite country as well, if I had the opportunity to live there, I actually probably would live there. it is just a different culture super people are incredible the food's much cleaner and i mean just everything tastes better but but we we started going on little things we went to the middle of the earth and we went to some volcanic spas which was incredible and the one thing that i wasn't anticipating is the amount of time in a car to get anywhere and it was very you know the roads or not yeah we were in quito yeah that's where my wife's from so you know we you know i wasn't by by the time that we were supposed to go to codepoxy i looked at my wife i go i can't do another two hour trip i just i was like babe we're coming back but i'm not doing this because i'm gonna sleep the whole way and i just don't you know i didn't want to do it but uh you know my wife said well that's the best part of equitable like you we have to go i'm like well cool we'll go next time.

14:29It's so amazing. I highly recommend it. I highly recommend climbing it because like, it's kind of a, it's kind of like an intro level peak for like high altitude. And it's just like stunningly beautiful. I like to call going to Ecuador, like expedition light, because you're still like trying hard and doing hard things and add altitude. So it's a little painful, but then you get to stay in these really amazing, like haciendas and little huts and the food is really good and it's all very comfortable and you're not sleeping in a tent. And so it's just like this really nice mix of like, you're kind of suffering on the mountain, but then you get to go and have a little bit more comfort and luxury.

15:06It's just like the best combination ever. And I would continue going back forever. Whereas other things I'm less into now. Yeah, no, absolutely. Sometimes you do things you're like, okay, that was great, but I'm done. But Ecuador is like one of those things where it's just the energy there. And I think it's because I mean, I'm literally, you know, I can't remember what the place was called, but it was this volcanic spot. It was in the middle of a volcano. And I'm sitting there looking at the Andes mountains and the cloud, you know, was very overcast and drizzling the whole day. And I'm laying in this spot, like in a hundred degree water.

15:42And I'm like, looking all around me and I'm like, man, if this doesn't connect you, there's gotta be something wrong with you. because it was just incredible. And then coming home, I'm like, damn it, I want to go back. I know. I want to go back. I have that same feeling. Yeah, we have to get back to Ecuador. I think we're, yeah, I want to go to the Galapagos too because that's supposed to be amazing. Our friend lives in the Galapagos. She's a marine biologist and she's a very, very good one and a very, I guess you would call popular or world-renowned one. and the next trip is you know rumored to be the galapagos and i would love to go there like that is the most beautiful i've heard amazing things and then when i search pictures on i was like there's so much beauty in ecuador and that and that is just so nice i know it's the best i love it yeah you have plans to go back anytime soon well yeah we're actually our friends who are from ecuador are really encouraging us to go back next summer or next i guess it's uh like august for the galapagos yeah and our son will be three and a half so he'll kind of be at the age where he can like enjoy the animals and stuff so they're really encouraging us to go back they also really want us to just send our kid to ecuador for like months to just spend time with them um when he's a little bit older and I'm like super, I'm super down with that as well.

17:07You're down with that. I don't know if I can last more than a week without my kids. I know. It's hard. It's really hard. Yep. It is hard. How old are your kids? I was being a mom. Oh, so my kids. Okay. My, I have a 11 year old son. He's Halloween. He turns 12 and I have a nine year old daughter and a six year old daughter. That's almost seven. Oh, wow. I bet it's fun. I'm in it. You're in it. It's fun. I'm in it big time, Emily, but here's the thing. Every morning with my daughters is like breaking up World War III. They're just battling. Unrelenting. Unrelenting. She sat on my bed when I was trying to make it.

17:47I'm like, okay, did you just ask her to move? Like, what's the problem here? But it's a lot of fun, but it is, man. It's like one of those things where you're constantly managing different personalities and, you know, but there's no better gift than to be a parent. And so, you know, you've been a parent for almost, you know, for three years now, right? So how's motherhood for you? It's so fun. Honestly, it's been so fun. Our son is, he'll be three end of November. And it's, yeah, I mean, it's been, you know, more positives than negatives. Obviously, it's hard. There are hard moments, especially right now, because he's just, he has a lot of feelings, but he can't really express what, like, why he's having those feelings.

18:29Like this morning, he asked me to help him stop crying. and I was like oh I don't know how to help you stop crying but I'm so sorry it's so sweet um but you know he's just like got a lot going on and he's struggling to like express it and resolve it and so um it's so it's so fun I think my husband and I we definitely like we use our like climbing experience and our expedition experience and we kind of apply it to parenthood um so it is like it is like a big adventure it is a big expedition it is like a lot of things go wrong there's a lot of uncertainty there's a lot of dynamics that you can't really control um and you're oftentimes like tired and out of your element uh but you know we recognize that every phase is kind of like temporary and so we just try to enjoy the one we're in and then you know some things get better some things get worse it's a little bit of a roller coaster but But it's been just so awesome.

19:26And this age is like, I mean, it keeps saying every age is like my favorite age. But right now it's just been it's just been so fun to watch him kind of like evolve and turn into a human and his own his own person. It's it's so cool. My favorite age for my son was three. OK, cool. That's what people say. I mean, our son is such a little boy. He's like, he's just like super into motorcycles and trucks and dinosaurs. And he loves climbing and surfing and he's like pretending to do all the things. It's super, it's super, super fun. Well, you know, his mom and dad climb mountains and shit, you know, like rock climb.

20:06Yeah. And we bring him rock climbing and we bring him skiing. So he kind of like understands, he understands all of it. He understands that's what we do. and he wants to do it as well. And it's just, it's been really cool to watch. That's really awesome. Going back to, you know, when he said, can you help me stop crying? My wife, I don't know where she heard about it, if she invented it on her own, this idea, but our daughters, they get super emotional and they can't shut it off. And so one day, and I looked at my wife like, what are you asking them this for? she goes to my youngest honey do you need a hug yeah that's the trigger for my youngest now it's like when she's having an absolute meltdown baby do you need a hug it's done it stops immediately and I looked at my wife like she had three heads and it actually works so I guess you know I just have to listen to her because she knows best yeah I mean ultimately I think they just want to feel safe and yeah that's that's kind of how our son is too.

21:13He just wants to like be held and be cuddled. And he also asked if he can cuddle. He says, can you cuddle me? So sweet. I love that. I love that. My, like I said, my youngest is six and, and my, my daughter, my other daughter, she's nine every night. Can you cuddle us for a little bit? Can you? And then, you know, I'm like, okay, I'll come. And then, and then the little one, well, you cuddled me last night, so I don't want to make mama feel bad. She goes, I have an idea. And she'll do any, many, many, mo, but completely skew it to where my wife wins. And those are the nights that I need the cuddles, right?

21:48Because I need them at times too. I'm like, what the heck, man? I wanted to be the one to put you down. Last night, my wife won the eeny, meeny, miny, moe. I go, I'm traveling Thursday, Friday, and I'm coming back Saturday. She doesn't get to win this. I'm cuddling you tonight. You don't have a choice or you can sleep on the porch. We have the same exact thing going on in our house. every night every night our son asked if i can put him to bed if i could do bedtime and my husband's like no i'm leaving i'm putting you to bed oh that's so what a good dad what a good dad it's awesome what do you guys have coming up you have any uh um adventures or any projects coming up that you can talk about yeah of course um so yeah rock climbing is really cool in that i can kind of uh cater it to you know the logistics of our life and that is like having a toddler right now having a family um so i'm i'm i'm still climbing a ton i'm training really hard and honestly i'm like in some disciplines i'm performing just as well now as i did when i was like 18 years old which is really exciting and cool um so i have a lot of like little i call them mini projects like things like little trips that I can places I can go and try like a hard route hard for me and try to complete it within two to three weeks and I just did that this past spring in Spain actually my husband was guiding Mount Everest during the time so I was with our au pair and uh our son and so I like brought it brought him to Spain and like worked on this project and ended up completing it on the last day and that was really awesome and exciting and then I did another little project in Idaho this summer.

23:30We live out of our van sometimes. And so we did a little van trip to Idaho and I did another little project there. And then we're actually about to go to Kentucky here in two weeks, which has some of the best climbing in the US. It's a sandstone climbing area called the Red River Gorge. Super unique part of the country for us to go to, but one of the most amazing places. And so we're going to go there for two weeks and I'll have another little project that i'm trying to complete actually something i've tried for several years before like i'm probably nine years ago i was trying this route so i kind of want to see if i can do it this year um but yeah we'll see i so yeah we're doing like a lot of like smaller trips little projects it's been really fun uh super motivating for me i don't have anything like super big right now because of the film stuff we i've just been doing a lot of pr and a lot of film premieres it's just hard to do something like go to yosemite yosemite is just like such an intense place to be we went last year and i was able to climb a route that i'm really proud of but not on el cap um i'm still kind of waiting to go back to el cap it's it's it'll be big when i it'll be exciting when i do but i'm a little bit like timid about it at the moment it's just committing and scary but i but but i get that right because i've i've seen the doc you know and you know again don't want to get too into it to ruin it but the cert like every pitch was different and seeing you i think it was a5 yeah is that what it's called yeah i just i don't understand how a human body can do what you did.

25:20No, it's impressive. Thank you. I mean, it's the whole like 10 ,000 hours theory, right? Like I've just been basically working towards that since I was 10 years old. And yeah, it's pretty intense. It's pretty intense. Every time you would go to get the chalk, I'd be like, oh my God, what are you doing? Don't, no, no, don't take your hands off of it. I'm like freaking out. I'm like, what is she doing? You need those hands, Emily. Chalk is essential. We need the chalk. I bet. Yeah. No, it was just, it was really good to see the differences. And this is why I was so excited to have you on because you did something so big and you've been so successful in your career, even as a young climber, the indoor rock climbing, and then now to a completely different avenue from what you were doing.

26:08But what I really enjoyed was the adversity aspect and the overcoming of the adversity in that specific project. And I think a lot of times where people get stuck is when things get really hard or they'll fail at something once or twice and they're like, I'm done. I'm gonna abandon that. I'm not gonna do it. Where here you are going through injuries, self-doubt and getting strong to a point where you could go back and do that and finish it. I mean, it was inspirational to see someone go through everything like that and still push. and still stay focused on, have you always been like that? Or is it something that as you've gotten older, a bigger aspect of that shows itself?

26:54Because to me, it looks natural. I think it's a bit of both. I think I was born with some level of tenacity in that I didn't give up very easily. And so that's obviously like a valuable in an elite athlete. and then I think people don't often realize that like rock climbing is just all about failure like we get so good at failing because essentially all we do is fall and all we do is fail and and then we like work work work work work to try to kind of solve the puzzle and figure out the way up and then when we do it's kind of like okay cool I did that now I'm gonna find something else to do so it really is just kind of about the struggle and it's about the failure and we get really good at that.

27:39Like, I think that that's why climbing is such a cool sport. It teaches you so much. And I suppose, you know, any sort of athletic endeavor, but in particular, like climbing is about being in the space of failure. It's about having something that you're working towards. And most often you're, you're, you're not doing it. Like I have a long list of climbs that I haven't completed that I'd like to complete someday, you know, and I'll, I always think about like, especially with rock climbing, it's like, the rock is always going to be there, like it's not going anywhere. So you can always go back to it.

28:13And I really like that mentality with something with having a goal. It's like, it requires a lot of patience. So you kind of are like, okay, maybe I'm not going to do it today. Maybe I'm not going to do it tomorrow. Maybe I'm not going to do it on this trip. But it's always going to be here. And I can always come back to it. And I've always really liked and liked and appreciated that mentality. And I think it, it's enabled me to kind of sit in that space of failing and struggling and not kind of capitulate. Like, so that's just like not a part of the equation in our brains. We're just kind of like, it's still there.

28:50So it's still an opportunity to go do it. So you're never kind of like, oh, I'm giving up because it's always, it's always going to be there. You're always going to have the opportunity to get stronger and go back to it. And I think that that's just a really important attitude to have in a lot of things. That's a great point. And for the audience, uh, tuning in, I want you to really think about this, uh, what I'm about to say and reflect on what Emily just said, because people go through life and are so scared to fail. They like the failure, the F word to them is like embarrassment. And it, it brings the sense of lack of accomplishment and people are going to laugh at me.

29:28I mean, I didn't rock climb. I played baseball. And I always said baseball is a game of failure. Then after learning about you more, both those sports are rooted in failure, like truly rooted in failure. You're going to fail more times than not. And for me, they really parallel life, right? Because we go through it for the people that are not athletes and they're not pushing themselves like you are in that avenue. They're pushing in their career. They're pushing as parents or even someone who is single trying to find the partner of their life, right? There's so much disappointment every single day that people have the potential to go through.

30:09But what I think is important is to understand and really to subscribe to the theory that this is what's going to make me. Like this moment, this failure, this piece of adversity, this tragedy is going to serve me in such a way if I allow it to. yeah totally i think that's the attitude shift that can help people a lot with their mental health for example just like shifting that perspective and then also i think kind of paralleling the fear of failure is the like necessity for everything to go right and the necessity for everything to kind of fall into place in the way that you envisioned it and that also just isn't a realistic expectation for life.

30:56Especially, you know, for me right now, it's like, it's not a realistic expectation as a parent either. Like, things just don't go as planned. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of things that we can't control. And I think along with like accepting and learning from our failures is also accepting and understanding that perfect doesn't exist and that we can't control everything. And so you do have to kind of control what you can control and let go of the rest in a way. As scary as that is for some people to do, I think it's a really, really valuable exercise. And I think it can help people a lot with like their anxiety and their wellbeing and like enabling them to sleep at night like me.

31:41no i love it and you're 100 spot on right i think it's all about perspective and it's all about allowing yourself to be imperfect i mean not to seek perfection in an imperfect world we're all going to fail and that should excite you in a lot of different ways so um i i hear you on that one it's but it's hard right because you know i get a lot of people reaching out to me and I'm sure you do as well. How do I push through this? I can't give them the magic bullet. But what I can say is like, hey, this moment where you're struggling so much, this is your opportunity. This is where you grow. This is where you turn into the badass that you're going to be.

32:24You have to embrace these moments because if you're just looking for the win, if you're looking to complete the project, if you're looking for the trophy, how unfulfilling is that right like because once you get the trophy like a lot of times where i hit a milestone i'm i'm thinking once i get here this is going to be great for the show for the platform then i get there i'm like i missed the chase i missed the work i missed the failure yeah and i think that's why a lot of athletes and people who have these like really big goals i mean first of all if it wasn't hard if it was easy like it wouldn't be meaningful so it kind of like kind of aspiring to the end or the outcome is of course it's a very natural thing to do but then oftentimes like if it if there's no struggle then it's a little bit anticlimactic and you kind of like left unfulfilled but at the same time if you have this really long drawn out struggle and you get to the the finish line like for me with the film um when i finally kind of like you know made made it happen.