Top climber Emily Harrington rescued after fall on El Capitan in Yosemite
Top climber Emily Harrington escaped with cuts and bruises after falling on the famous El Capitan peak in Yosemite National Park.
The 33-year-old was trying to scale a route on the 3,200-foot granite monolith in California when she fell and “pin balled” on her rope.
She was rescued by a number of fellow climbers including Adrian Ballinger and Alex Honnold, the first person to climb El Capitan without a safety rope and the subject of the 2018 documentary “Free Solo.”
“I had an accident yesterday on El Cap. I’m banged up but gonna be OK thankfully,” Harrington later posted on Instagram with photos of her injuries, which include a large abrasion on her neck.
“Not much to say except I took a bad fall and pin balled a bit then somehow hit the rope with my neck.”
Harrington, who is a five-time US sport climbing champion, free climbed the difficult Golden Gate route on El Capitan in 2015, supported by Ballinger.
As well as scaling Himalayan giants Mount Everest, Ama Dablam and Cho Oyu, Harrington has recently has been trying to free climb Golden Gate from the base to the summit in a single day, according to Gripped.com.
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Honnold’s famous climb on El Capitan has since been immortalized in the BAFTA-winning National Geographic documentary “Free Solo,” which won Best Documentary at this year’s Oscars.
El Capitan stands almost 500 feet taller than the Burj Khalifa — the world’s tallest building. For Honnold’s feat, a fall would have meant almost certain death.
“When I know what I’m doing and I’m climbing well, then it feels meditative, kind of relaxing and beautiful,” Honnold told CNN Sport in February.
