Transcript of Girl Climber: Emily Harrington’s Ascent Beyond Limits

People don't often realize that rock climbing is just all about failure. We get so good at failing because essentially all we do is fall. Really, it's just 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 unique part of the film is the highlighting of partnership and the highlighting of the support. You have to have someone on on the other end of that rope. And so they're literally holding your life in their hands. You need someone up there that you trust, that has the skills that you do, that knows you and knows how you operate. I just had the best team ever to support me. And I I think that that's this huge part of what made it all happen for me.

Hey, 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. 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. Quite honestly, guys, we talk about the Determine 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. This has been a long time coming. We've been back and forth with our schedules. 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, but literally riveting. The thing that I enjoyed most about 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 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. I thought you should know that.

Well, thank you so much. Yeah, that's the best feedback that you can get. It is a super vulnerable film. There's a lot of big feelings. I think people do really... They connect with that side of it because it's not often shown in a lot of these sports documentaries.

That's the thing that I really enjoyed, though, Emily, is because it was different than everything else. 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, just from your childhood, the things that you struggled with, the perception of you, even just to the point where, Hey, this is mostly it's a guys club. 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. It was an awesome, awesome film.

Thank you so much. Yeah, I really appreciate that.

Absolutely. I'm on a long road. How much is it for you? I know. I felt like I've experienced it with you. That whole hour and 32 minutes or whatever, I'm like, Yeah, we're besties now. I know her. I get I'm feeling your whole journey, the emotion of it. 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, for me, it's very easy for me, and it may not have always been that way, but you love with such vulnerability and you're putting it out there. Was that easy for you or was there a moment where you're like, Man, I don't know if I want to share this?

It's a question I get a lot. I think it's interesting because it wasn't difficult because the filmer, my friend, John Glassberg, he was one of my best friends. We just been through so much together. To me, it was like I was just being vulnerable in front of this person who I trusted. I was just being me. I was really present and involved in the project. Also, when someone's pointing a camera in your face, especially when you're climbing, what's going through your mind is not like, Oh, someday this is going to be on an IMAX screen. Nobody thinks that. I knew that John had a dream of making a feature doc, but we all have dreams, right? Oftentimes, they don't pan out. In my mind, I was like, Oh, this could be a little YouTube short for one of my sponsors. But yeah, I don't really have that much of an issue with it. I also think 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 have assumed.

Yeah, I was just being me.

It was very raw. I mean, there's times where I'm sitting there because we watched it in 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, if I'm on a sixth floor of a condo, my kids are like, Hey, get back. Hey, come here. I'm like, Hey, why don't you step back a little bit? But to see the things that you do is just mind-blowing to me, to be quite honest.

I think most people... A lot A lot of people have that reaction. I think the interesting thing is I also have that experience when I'm dealing with exposure. I don't like standing on edges. I don't like being on the edge of L Cap without a rope on. I totally get the weird anxiety, exposure feeling. I think when I'm facing the wall and actually on the wall, for some reason, it's a different experience for me. And because I'm just so accustomed to climbing and the feeling of climbing and having control, it doesn't affect me as much. But I, too, have that fear of exposure and that fear of height. If I think too much about it, then I can get overwhelmed by that very human fear. We're supposed to have that response when we're high up. It's your brain telling you that there's something dangerous happening and you should take a step back. I, too, have that reaction. I I think that's also why the film is so relatable to people is I talk a lot about how scary it is up there and how afraid I am. I think a lot of people might think that I'm not afraid and that I just don't even think about it, but I do quite often, actually.

I mean, it's like one of those things that you mentioned when you're facing the wall, you're desensitized because you're looking at the wall and you're actively engaged. 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. How 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, well, how do they know that rope is strong? If she falls on a certain pitch, how do we know this is going to... How does she know that this is going to hold her?

It's the same reason you know that your airplane isn't going to fall out of the sky. You don't know exactly why, but it doesn't. You trust the system. I mean, these things have been tested and rated, and they go through massive testing, and they can hold far more than body weight, far more loads than a person falling. I've actually hauled someone's van out of a ditch using a climbing rope.

You have? Yeah.

That was actually a very visual example of how strong the ropes are. I just watched it stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch That's wild, man.

That's crazy.

We have a lot of faith in our equipment. We have a ton of faith in our equipment. They're tested a lot, and it's above and beyond. Modern equipment, modern technology, it's just like any other sport. 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 amount of support from human beings. You're your support in your climb of LCAAP. He said something, man, that... I mean, of course, most people know who he is, but he said something to you on your first try. You said, I'm giving it all I can right now. And he goes, But are you? It feels worky to me. And then he's like, Of course you can. You just get in and engage. Get in and engage. I stopped the video. I go, Bobby, did you hear that? My son, Did you pick up on that? And he goes, No. I go, I rewound it five different times. That was such an impactful point for me, and it brought me in even further.

Awesome. I think that Another cool and unique part of the film is the highlighting of partnership and the highlighting of the support. Climbing can seem like such an individual sport because you just see one person on the wall. But 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 emotional side of things. And that can be so crucial with a project like that. You need someone up there that you trust, that has the skills that you do, that knows you and knows how you operate. For me, I just had the best team ever to support me. I think that that's this huge part of what made it all happen for me was their emotional support more than anything.

Yeah. You can see that in the film, really. You can see how it works in your life. I mean, heck, when you went on that first climb in Nepal, that's where you met your husband.

Yeah.

Right? That was really cool.

Yeah. We met on Mount Everest, which was crazy and totally changed my life. Yeah, that was 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 Adrienne, my now husband, and the other being Hillary Nelson, who was just such a mentor to me throughout my career.

Yeah. 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 Monaslu, 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 countless other men and women.

Well, it was really nice to see how your friendship and your connection evolved through that film. She was very open about the early goings. Then, again, I don't want to ruin it. I'm being cryptic here, but- A little vague, yeah. You just see that... Yeah, very vague. But listen, the audience like, Hey, this is by design. I can't be too direct. Just to see that and watch that unfold was absolutely beautiful.

Thank you. Yeah, we had an amazing friendship.

Yeah. You met your husband on Mount Everest, and You guys climbed Cotapoxy together in Ecuador and got married in Ecuador. 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. Mine, too. We have so many friends there. My husband owns a guide company that they guide mountains all over the world, including Mount Everest. The majority of the international guides are from Ecuador because they just, as you probably know, they have such a deep mountain culture, and they're incredibly talented. We got married there because we both love it so much. We did. We climbed Cotapoxy. I think I've climbed Cotapoxy. I've climbed Cotapoxy twice, attempted three times, and I've skied it twice. Have you done it?

No. What I wasn't expecting, so when we got to Ecuador, and again, my favorite country as well, if I I had the opportunity to live there, I actually probably would live there. It is just a different culture. People are incredible. The food's much cleaner, and just everything tastes better. But we started going on little things. We went to the middle of the Earth, then we went to some volcanic spas, which was incredible. The one thing that I wasn't anticipating is the amount of time in a car to get anywhere. It was very... You know the roads or not? Yeah. We were in Yeah, that's where my wife's from. By the time that we were supposed to go to Coda Park, I looked at my wife and go, I can't do another two-hour trip. I was like, Babe, we're coming back, but I'm not doing this because I'm going to sleep the whole way. I didn't want to do it. But my wife said, Well, that's the best part of Ecuador. We have to go. I'm like, Well, cool. We'll go next time.

It's so That's amazing. I highly recommend it. I highly recommend climbing it because it's an intro-level peak for high altitude, and it's just stunningly beautiful. I like to call going to Ecuador like Expedition Light because you're still 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 haciendas and little huts, and the food is really good, and it's all very comfortable, and you're not sleeping in a tent. It's just this really nice mix of you're suffering on the mountain, but then you get to go and have a little bit more comfort and luxury. It's just 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 that world is one of those things where... Just the energy there. I think it's because I'm literally... I can't remember what the place was called, but it was this volcanic spa. I was in the middle of a volcano, and I'm sitting there looking at the Andes Mountains, and it was very overcast and drizzling the whole day. I'm laying in this spot in 100 degree water, and I'm looking all around me, and I'm like, Man, if this doesn't connect you, there's got to be something wrong with you because it was just incredible. Then coming home, I'm like, Damn it, I want to go back.

I want to go back. I have that same feeling. We I have to get back to Ecuador. I want to go to the Galápagos, too, because that's supposed to be amazing.

Our friend lives in the Galápagos. She's a marine biologist, and she's a very good one and a very, I guess you would call popular or world-renowned one. The next trip is rumored to be the Galápagos, and I would love to go there. That is the most beautiful. I've heard amazing things, and then when I search pictures on it, it's like, there's so much beauty in Ecuador. In that region. It's so nice.

I know. It's the best. I love it.

Do you have plans to go back anytime soon?

Well, yeah. Actually, our friends who are from Ecuador are really encouraging us to go back next summer or next, I guess it's August for the Galápagos. Yeah. Our son will be three and a half, so he'll be at the age where he can enjoy the animals and stuff. They're really encouraging us to go back. They also really want us to just send our kid to Ecuador for months to just spend time with them when he's a little bit older. I'm super down with that as well.

You'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. It's hard. It is hard.

How old are your kids? I was being a mom. Oh, so my kids, okay. I have an 11-year-old son. He's on Halloween. He turns 12. I have a nine-year-old daughter and a six-year-old daughter. That's almost seven.

Oh, wow. I bet it's 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. She sat on my bed when I was trying to make it. I'm like, Okay, did you just ask her to move? 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, but there's better a gift than to be a parent. You've been a parent for almost for three years now, right? How's motherhood for you?

It's so fun. Honestly, it's been so fun. Our son, he'll be three end of November. It's been more positives than negatives. Obviously, it's hard. There are hard moments, especially right now because he has a lot of feelings, but he can't really express why he's having those feelings. This morning, he asked to help him stop crying. I was like, I don't know how to help you stop crying, but I'm so sorry. That is so sweet. It's so sweet. But he's just got a lot going on, and he's struggling to express it and resolve it. It's so fun. I think my husband and I, we use our climbing experience and our expedition experience, and we apply it to parenthood. It is It is 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, and you're oftentimes tired and out of your element. But we recognize that every phase is temporary, and so we just try to enjoy the one we're in. Then some things get better, some things get worse. It's a little bit of a roller coaster, but it's been just so awesome.

This age is like... I mean, I keep saying every age is my favorite age, but right now it's just been so fun to watch him evolve and turn into a human in his own person. It's so cool.

My favorite age for my son was three.

Okay, cool. That's what people say. Our son is such a little boy. He's just super into motorcycles and trucks and dinosaurs. He loves climbing and surfing. He's pretending to do all the things. It's super, super Well, his mom and dad climb mountains and shit.

Rock climb.

Yeah, and we bring him rock climbing and we bring him skiing. He understands all of it. He understands that's what we do, and he wants to do it as well. It's been really cool to watch.

That's really awesome. Going back to 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. 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. I looked at my wife like she had three heads, and it actually works. I guess I just have to listen to her because she knows best. Yeah.

I mean, ultimately, I think they just want to feel safe. Yeah, that's how our son is, too. He just wants to be held and be cuddled. He also asked if he can cuddle. He says, Can you cuddle me?

So sweet. I love that. Like I said, my youngest is six, and my other daughter, she's nine. Every night, Can you cuddle us for a little bit? Can you Then I'm like, Okay, I'll come in. Then the little one will be like, 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, money, mo, but completely skew it to where my wife wins. Those are the Those are the nights that I need the cuddles because 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 any, many, money, mo. I go, I'm traveling Thursday, Friday, and I'm coming back 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 this same exact thing going on in our house. 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.

What a good dad. It's awesome. What do you guys have coming up? You have any adventures or any projects coming up that you can talk about?

Yeah, of course. I Rock climbing is really cool in that I can cater it to the logistics of our life, and that is having a toddler right now, having a family. I'm still climbing a ton. I'm training really hard. And honestly, in some disciplines, I'm performing just as well now as I did when I was 18 years old, which is really exciting and cool. I have a lot of I call them mini projects, little trips, places I can go and try a hard route, hard for me, and try to complete it within 2-3 weeks. 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 our son. I brought him to Spain and worked on this project and ended up completing it on the last day. That was really awesome and exciting. Then I did another little project in Idaho this summer. We live out of our van sometimes, and so we did a little van trip to Idaho, and I did another little project there. 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. 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. Probably nine years ago, I was trying this route. I want to see if I can do it this year. But we'll see. We're doing a lot of smaller trips. Little projects. It's been really fun. Super motivating for me. I don't have anything super big right now because of the film stuff. 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 It's 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 L Cap. I'm still waiting to go back to L Cap. It'll be big It'll be exciting when I do, but I'm a little bit timid about it at the moment. It's just committing and scary.

But I get that because I've seen the doc. Again, don't want to get too into it to ruin it, but every pitch was different. Seeing you, I think it was A5.

Yeah, the A5 traverse. Is that what it's called? Yeah.

I don't understand how a human body can do what you did. No, it's impressive.

Thank you. I mean, it's the whole 10,000 Hours theory, right? I've just been basically working towards that since I was 10 years old.

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? No, don't take your hands off of it. I'm 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 really good to see the differences. 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. But what I really enjoyed was the adversity aspect and the overcoming of the adversity in that specific project. I think a lot of times where people get stuck is when things get really hard or they fail at something once or twice, and they're like, I'm done. I'm going to abandon that. I'm not going to 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. 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? Because 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 valuable in an elite athlete. And then I think people don't often realize that rock climbing is just all about failure. We get so good at failing because essentially all we do is fall and all we do is fail. And then we work, work, work, work, work to try to solve the puzzle and figure out the way up. And then when we do, So it's like, okay, cool, I did that. Now I'm going to find something else to do. So it really is just about the struggle, and it's about the failure, and we get really good at that. I think that that's why climbing is such a cool sport. It teaches you so much. And I suppose I suppose any athletic endeavor. But in particular, climbing is about being in the space of failure. It's about having something that you're working towards. And most often, you're not doing it. I have a long list of climbs that I haven't completed that I'd like to complete someday. I always think about...

Especially with rock climbing, it's like the rock is always going to be there. It's not going anywhere. So you can always go back to it. And I really like that mentality with something, with having a goal. It requires a lot of patience. So you 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 I've always really liked and appreciated that mentality. I think it's enabled me to sit in that space of failing and struggling and not capitulate. So that's just not a part of the equation in our brains. We're just like, it's still there, so it's still an opportunity to go do it. You're never like, Oh, I'm giving up, because it's always going to be there. You're always going to have the opportunity to get stronger and go back to it. I think that that's just a really important attitude to have in a lot of things.

That's a great point. For the audience tuning in, I want you to really think about this, what I'm about to say and reflect on what Emily just said, because people go through life and are so scared to fail. The failure, the F word to them is like, embarrassment, and it brings this sense of lack of accomplishment, and people are going to laugh at me. 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. Truly rooted in failure, truly rooted in failure. You're going to fail more times than not. For me, they really parallel life. 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 or even someone who is single, trying to find the partner of their life. There's so much disappointment every single day that people have the potential to go through. But what I think is important is to understand and really to subscribe to the theory that this is what's going to make me.

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 I think that's the attitude shift that can help people a lot with their mental health, for example. Just shifting that perspective. Then also, I think paralleling the fear of failure is the necessity for everything to go right and the necessity for everything to fall into place in the way that you envisioned it. That also just isn't a realistic expectation for life, especially for me right now. It's not a realistic expectation as a parent either. Things just don't go as planned. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of things that we can't control. I think along with accepting and learning from our failures is also accepting and understanding that perfect doesn't exist and that we can't control everything. You do have to 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 I think it's a really valuable exercise, and I think it can help people a lot with their anxiety and their well-being and enabling them to sleep at night like me.

No, I love it, and you're 100% spot on. I think It's all about perspective, and it's all about allowing yourself to be imperfect, 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. I hear you on that one. But it's hard because 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, 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. You have to embrace these moments because if you're just looking for the win, if you're looking to complete the the project, if you're looking for the trophy, how unfulfilling is that? Because once you get the trophy, a lot of times where I hit a milestone, I'm thinking, once I get here, this is going to be great for the show, for the platform. Then I get there and I'm like, I missed the chase.

I missed the work. I missed the failure.

I think that's why a lot of athletes and people who have these really big goals... I mean, first of all, if it was easy, it wouldn't be meaningful. Aspiring to the end or the outcome is, of course, it's a very natural thing to do. But then oftentimes, if there's no struggle, then it's a little bit anticlimateic and you're left unfulfilled. But at the same time, if you have this really long, drawn-out struggle and you get to the finish line, for me, with the film, when I finally made it happen, I had this period of time where I was incredibly lost and felt empty and didn't know what to do next and didn't have any motivation and didn't want to climb but didn't know what else to do without climbing. So it was just this very empty feeling. And I think that is also something that we should be aware of. It's like something that happens. It happens to people when they reach the finish line of something. I think it's the awareness that doing the thing, achieving the goal, is not going to somehow be a magic bullet to make you happy and to improve your life dramatically.

It's not about that. It's about what you learn in the process. And yeah, expecting all of a sudden you're totally satisfied, you're never going to need to chase or pursue anything again. It's just a bit false. I think it's just something to be aware of. Doing a thing is not going to help you reach enlightenment or ultimate happiness. The emphasis really should be on the process to getting there.

But that's what makes people successful is just exactly what you chronicled and what you just talked about. Because the gift is in the process. Everybody talks about, marry the process and divorce the result. It's very hard to do because we live in a result-driven society. The trick is to figure out what you love about the process, what you love about the work, because that's what's going to build you. I can look at, we had a milestone last November that I was blown away by. I'm like, Wow, this is it. Next day, I woke up so down. I'm like, What now? I'm thinking, What do you mean what now, Sean? There's so much more to go. In that milestone we hit last year in November, for the first 11 months of the year, we do it in a month now. It's cool. But I went back to the drawing board, and I said, Okay, that's neat. That's cool. But what did I love about it? It was the process. It was the work. It was the focus, the clarity, and the conversations like this that I got fully immersed in. I got to research the people.

I got to be included in screening films. I love that process. I just made it about that every single day. When I get on the mic and I'm having the conversation, that's game time. I've already done the work, and that's what I enjoy.

Totally. Obviously, we're not trying to say that milestones aren't important or goals aren't important. Having the outcome is important. I do care about success. I'm not saying that, I just love failing all the time and never being successful.

No, I don't think anybody's taken that. That's not true at all. No. If they're going with that context, they haven't listened to this whole episode. I can tell you that much right now. Totally. I'm with you. I love winning.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. You love having wins. But it's got to be hard. You have to be able to work for it, and that's the beauty of it. I think it's a really fortunate position to be in, too. It's like, Oh, wow, I get to go out and try hard every day and fight and think really deeply about this thing that I love so much. That is just such a fortunate position to be in. I think also recognizing that, Yeah, it's not perfect. Yeah, it's hard. It's uncomfortable. I struggle. But also, I get to do this, and this is awesome.

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. It's amazing to me. I really enjoyed watching it, doing more background on you, and watching what you're doing. Because, I mean, quite honestly, like I said, the things that you're able to do on a rock, most people can't do that on the ground. It It is a fascinating thing, but I also look at the early childhood aspect of it. What 12-year-old girl once wrote for Chris? I mean, really, they want... Back then, what was it? Nintendo for me. I'm a '78 baby. I was playing Nintendo, Super Nintendo, all that stuff.

Yeah, I was a '90s kid. I don't know what we wanted, like gel pens.

Oh, those are cool. I still want gel pens. Those things are dope. Those are cool, man. Those are really cool. I have this question. Now that we're running down to the end of the interview, I can ask this question now because my wife is very curious. She said, You better ask her this question. Where does the puppy go when you're climbing? Who's it? Kat, our dog. She's a dog lover, man. I'm telling you, she's like, Where's the puppy? It doesn't climb with her, does it? I'm like, God, no.

No, she doesn't. Kat is the undercover star of the movie, I think. Her name is Cat, C-A-T, but she's a dog. She's a little rescue pup that we got. She's almost nine now, but we love her so much. She's our first baby. She's a catahoula Pit. She's cool. Yeah, she's super cool. She's a great dog. She's one of those dogs that can sleep all day or she can run 20 miles. It doesn't really matter. She's totally happy doing both. It's perfect for our lives because to answer your question, when we go climbing, if we're going on a big trip, we have a friend who is super amazing, and it's basically her second home. He has a dog. Oftentimes, it's not like with kids. I feel like if you have one dog, two dogs doesn't really add that much. It's not that big of a deal. They can play together. It's pretty low maintenance. She goes to his house for when we go on really big, long expeditions, for going to Kyrgyzstan or something like that. She'll go to his house. Then When we're in Yosemite, actually, because she's mega chill, and we have a van, we have a very nice...

The van was in the film. It got a lot of room. We just would park it in the shade, turn on all the fans, leave some water, and she would just literally sleep in the front seat all day and wait for us to come home and to come back from climbing. It was so great. It was always a little bit of a stress in our brains. Like, cat's in the We got to get back in a reasonable time. But she just does so great. Obviously, with a child, we can't do that.

No. Oh, God.

Now we have a nanny and another person that hangs out with our kid when we're on the wall or doing longer days. Then Kat benefits from that because she's hanging out with that person as well. Yeah. That's what we do with her.

She's hanging out with her brother. She's hanging out with her brother. It's cool.

Yeah. They're a little love-hate at the moment. He's just super aggressive with her sometimes. He just doesn't get it. He loves her and he's so curious about her, but he grabs her face, and she's so tolerant. She's amazing with him. But we've definitely had to use some discipline with that because he can get a little rough.

My six-year-old is that way with our two dogs, and they're little dogs. The older one, he's eight or nine. I'm like, I'm like, Don't grab him like that. You can't do that. Because, again, even with bigger dogs, at somebody's house, you just have to be careful. You can't go up to a dog like that and just grab him.

That's the thing. Our son's not afraid of dogs because we have a very tolerant dog who accepts all of the torment. We're just trying to explain to him, not all dogs are like that.

Yeah, he'll figure it out. He'll figure it out. Yeah, he will. They just get super... They're excitable. But No, I'm really excited for you. I thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about your documentary and giving the audience some insight into you. We talked about a lot of amazing things today, and I encourage the audience to go and watch this documentary in IMAX when it comes out, and I don't think they'll be disappointed. Thank you again, Emily. You were absolutely incredible, and you're inspirational. We live in a world that can put limits on what women could do, and you are literally shattering those limits. I appreciate that, and I hope the rest of the world does and rushes out there to see what you've done.

Thank you so much. Well, I had a great time during this conversation, so thanks for having me.

Me too, Emily. Me too. Thanks again. And for the audience, go check out Emily Harrington on Instagram. Her handle will be in the show notes and learn more about her and follow her along on her adventures, her husband's adventures, and watch that little boy grow up and watch him be the next person climbing some big mountains in a very, very short time. But really, share this episode with somebody you know, love and trust, and go watch the damn documentary. And until next time, stay determined.