Emily Harrington was born on August 17, 1986, in Boulder, Colorado.[3] Her competitiveness pushed her to develop her climbing skills from an early age.[4] She began climbing artificial walls and competed with her local gym's climbing team.[4] From there, she became a professional sport climber and expanded into the worlds of rock and mountain climbing.[4]
Harrington studied international affairs with an emphasis on politics in Sub-Saharan Africa at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She graduated in 2007 and joined The North Face climbing team in 2008.[5][6]
Climbing career
Harrington has been the US National Champion in sport climbing five times (2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009).[1] She was also named the North American Sport Climbing Champion twice and placed second in the 2005 IFSC Climbing World Championships.[3] In 2006, Harrington placed first at the Serre Chevalier Invitational.[3] She won first place in 2012 at the Ouray Ice Festival.[1]
In 2012, Harrington was asked to join a joint expedition with The North Face and National Geographic to climb Mount Everest.[7] The expedition marked the beginning of her mountain career. Harrington summited Mount Everest in 2012, and Cho Oyu in 2016.[4][8]
In 2014, Harrington attempted to climb Hkakabo Razi, the tallest peak in Southeast Asia. This peak had only been climbed once before and Harrington's team intended to create their own route rather than follow that of the previous expedition. Harrington made it to the final route that would reach the summit, a climb that she described as "extremely difficult" and "extremely scary."[4] Ultimately Harrington chose to turn back.[4]
In November 2020, Harrington became the fourth woman (after Lynn Hill, Steph Davis, and Mayan Smith-Gobat) to free-climb the 3,000 ft (910 m) granite wall of El Capitan (which she did via Golden Gate), in a single day.[9] She completed the mammoth task in 21 hours, 13 minutes and 51 seconds.[10] She was assisted on the ascent by Alex Honnold. The year before, while practicing the El Capitan climb, an accidental 50 ft fall required her to be rescued.[11] During the 2020 climb, Harrington slipped and fell, leaving her with a gash on her forehead.[12][13] She was also the first woman to free climb Golden Gate on El Capitan in under 24 hours.[14]
The media mistakenly reported her achievement as the "first woman" to free climb the mountain in under 24 hours, ignoring the achievements of Lynn Hill, Steph Davis, and Mayan Smith-Gobat on other routes before her; it was later corrected.[15]
In 2021, Harrington achieved the first individual free climb of The American Way route on Pik Slesova in Kyrgyzstan. In 2022 Harrington and Adrian Ballinger were featured as part of HBO's show Edge of the Earth, in which HBO initially claimed they were "Attempting the First Free Climb Ascent of a Route on Pik Slesova in Kyrgyzstan."[16] However, they repeated a free route previously established by the team of NiK Berry, Eric Bissel, Brent Barghan and Dave Allfrey in August 2019.[17] The route was subsequently repeated two weeks after the first ascent. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time media outlets have misrepresented accomplishments in climbing.[18]
Emily has been in a relationship with Adrian Ballinger since 2012; they were married on December 11, 2021, in Ecuador.[26][27] Emily and Adrian met on a climb of Mount Everest.[28] They live in Olympic Valley, California.[1]
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