A well-known climber was rescued by Free Solo star Alex Honnold after she had a terrifying fall on El Capitan Peak in Yomesite Park.
Emily Harrington, 33, was trying to scale the 3,200-foot granite wall in California when she fell and ‘pin balled’ on her rope on Sunday morning.
The Colorado native was rescued by other climbers including Alex Honnold, who was the first person to climb El Capitan without a safety rope and who featured in the 2018 documentary Free Solo.
Harrington wrote on Instagram: ‘I had an accident yesterday on El Cap. I’m banged up but gonna be ok thankfully. Not much to say except I took a bad fall and pin balled a bit then somehow hit the rope w my neck.
Climber Emily Harrington, (left), was rescued by Free Solo star Alex Honnold, (right), after she had a terrifying fall on El Capitan Peak in Yomesite Park
Harrington, 33, was trying to scale the 3,200-foot granite wall in California when she fell and ‘pin balled’ on her rope on Sunday morning. She later posted that she was going to be fine
‘Thanks everyone who sent kind messages and thoughts – feeling so supported and loved.’
Her boyfriend, Adrian Ballinger, posted a picture of her with a pained expression on her face as she was carried from the area in a stretcher with her neck in a brace.
He praised fellow rescuers and Honnold for ‘calmly maintaining spinal immobilization on the wall, getting things ready for an evacuation.’
He wrote on Instagram: ‘Two mornings ago was the scene we all dread. The most important person in my world crumpled on a ledge after a big fall in below freezing temperatures with real injuries and a lot of reasons to suspect spinal injury.
‘But looking back it was also the best case scenario of the worst case scenario – @AlexHonnold with Em calmly maintaining spinal immobilization on the wall, getting things ready for an evac, and telling stories and keeping her talking throughout.’
She is currently living in Squaw Valley, California, so that she can focus on her training for climbing. She is also working to be become a complete all-around mountain athlete through trail running and skiing.
Harrington is a professional rock climber and adventurer who has been a prominent and leading figure in the climbing community since she was a teenager.
She has won five US National Sport Climbing Championships and two North American Championships.
Emily Harrington, 33, (pictured) was trying to scale the 3,200-foot granite wall in California when she fell and ‘pin balled’ on her rope
Harrison’s boyfriend, Adrian Ballinger, posted a picture of her with a pained expression on her face as she was carried from the area in a stretcher with her neck in a brace, (pictured)
Harrington has won five US National Sport Climbing Championships and two North American Championships
She free climbed the difficult Golden Gate route on El Capitan in 2015, supported by Ballinger.
She has also reached the summit of Mount Everest, and has been on expeditions all over the world, attempting free climbs and high altitude peaks in Nepal, China and Myanmar.
Meanwhile, Honnold was just 31 when he reached the climax of the vertical rock formation in California’s Yosemite National Park in June 2017 – all without ropes.
His journey became the subject of a National Geographic documentary ‘Free Solo’, which generated the highest per-venue average of 2018 and the best theater average ever for a documentary when it was released in September.
‘So delighted,’ Honnold said once he reached the top at the climax of the movie, which narrates the climb and his preparations for it.
Free solo climbing is an extreme technique practiced only by the most experienced climbers. They scale mountains with their bare hands and many die trying.
Harrington was rescued by other climbers including Alex Honnold (pictured), who was the first person to climb El Capitan without a safety rope and who featured in the 2018 documentary Free Solo
A file image shows El Capitan, a vertical rock formation in California’s Yosemite National Park
Honnold was just 31 when he reached the climax of the vertical rock formation in California’s Yosemite National Park in June 2017
One climber quoted in the film put it this way: imagine if the penalty for Olympic athletes who failed to win gold every time they compete were death. That is the reality for free climbers.
Honnold was accompanied by a filming team, who did use ropes, arrayed along the climbing path. A drone and two fixed cameras were also used, for the parts that are too difficult and dangerous for camera operators.
In some places the rock looks practically smooth, leaving Honnold with nothing more than seemingly invisible bumps and other irregularities in the mountain’s surface to get a toehold and hoist himself upward.
Honnold himself said he knows what it is to be afraid. ‘I’m afraid of death, I’m afraid of danger, I’m afraid of pain. I used to be very afraid of public speaking,’ he told AFP last week on the sidelines of a pre-screening of the film in Washington.
For years he climbed El Capitan with the aid of ropes, recording all of his movements. He was in great physical shape for the solo climb.
The film suggests that Honnold’s determination borders on obsession, to the point of his neglecting his girlfriend, Sanni McCandless. She calls him ‘brutally honest’ and a ‘weird dude.’