Emily Harrington, the first woman to ascend the notorious El Capitan in one day.

By: Neha Parthasarathi

Emily Harrington is the first woman to ascend the Golden Gate route on El Capitan, a 3,000-foot-high granite monolith in Yosemite National Park, in 21 hours.

Emily Harrington, a 34-year-old woman, had recently made history in one of the world’s most renowned national parks, Yosemite. This national park is best known for its natural beauty as its beautiful structures like waterfalls, towering granite monoliths, deep valleys, and ancient giant sequoias engrave bewilderment in tourists’ hearts. I myself have experienced this astonishing feeling as I have been there several times and it never changes.

About Harrington

Emily Harrington is a professional mountain climber; she has ventured all throughout the world on many journeys to pursue her passion for climbing. She successfully ascended El Capitan several times but over a period of time like multiple days like in 2015 over the course of a week, but after this, she started considering one-day ascents. In November of 2019, she attempted to ascend El Cap in one day, but fatally fell rappelling down 1000 feet. She suffered prolonged injuries like rope burn and head injuries, and even almost becoming paralyzed. She overcame these and the next year in 2020 she attempted again and successfully accomplished her goal.

About El Capitan

Now, let’s talk about the structure she had climbed. Along the northern end of the valley, lies a 3000-foot vertical slab of granite known as El Capitan. You can see this vertical slab clearly from several viewpoints around the valley as it stands out from all the other structures. The name El Capitan holds an immense and powerful meaning “the chief” or “the captain”. Many have attempted to climb this including professional mountain climbers like Alex Honnold a world-renowned free soloist, Tommy Caldwell a world-renowned free climber, and many more. If you are interested in these climbers check out the Oscar award-winning movies: Dawn Wall and Free solo (will be linked below)

Free soloing vs Free climbing

To highlight, free soloing and free climbing are two very different things. Like I mentioned Alex Honnold before he is a free soloist which means he climbs without ropes meaning he depends on his strength to make it out alive. This is highly impressive as it is very difficult and scary to dangle from a giant structure without any support. Now onto, free climbing. Free climbing is also extremely hard as you still have to use your strength to climb although you have the support of ropes to make sure your safety is not at risk. Emily Harrington is a free climber, not a free soloist.

El Capitan ascent

To emphasize, Emily Harrington was the first woman to climb this route in one day. There are 2 other amazing women who have climbed this notorious structure in several days like Steph Davis and Mayan Smith-Gobat. Harrington had taken the Golden Gate Route consisting of several hard pitches. Pitches in mountain climbing are parts of the route which are classified into different sections and it is typically classified by difficulty in a scale or grade of (5.0–5.7 is considered easy, 5.8–5.10 is considered intermediate, 5.11–5.12 is hard, and 5.13–5.15 is reserved for a very elite few). The golden gate route is rated a 5.13 plus which means it's extremely strenuous and only a few can climb this due to difficulty. The golden gate route consists of several hard pitches that Emily had struggled with that she practiced over and over again until she perfectly got it. On November 12, 2020, she successfully ascended El Capitan.

Harrington said proudly, “Honestly it started out as a dream I never really thought I could achieve. But putting in the effort felt worthy and interesting at this stage in my climbing. After years of toiling (and almost dying last year), I realized that maybe I actually was capable.” This is a proud accomplishment not only for Harrington as she trained for several years requiring an immense amount of physical stamina but also for women. Harrington has accomplished so much in the past few years from a five-day ascent on the golden gate route to a twenty-one hour ascent in 2020.