Thunk. Emily Harrington throws her foot — her heel — up beside her fingers, straining to traverse a two-inch granite edge high on El Capitan, in the wind and weather, where the trees 2,500 feet below look like sprigs. She is trying to climb, as the film “Girl Climber” documents, the demanding Golden Gate route up the 3,000-foot monolith in Yosemite in a single day.
The mission, this climbing champion says in the film, is “the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” and the tight action sequence shows the athleticism and laser focus of really hard free climbing on El Cap — using hands and feet only, relying on gear only for falls.
The film director, Jon Glassberg, marvels at the scene. “It’s a really cool sequence of two-finger pockets in a quartz dike,” he wrote in an email. “It’s amazing.” Harrington is hanging on by two fingers and a heel.
Cinematic yet intimate, “Girl Climber” shows a top athlete committing years of her life to something uncertain, while also hoping to start a family, as that clock ticks. It has a deeply affecting context of mentorship and loss. It has, yes, we promise, Alex Honnold of “Free Solo,” ever a forthright and humorous presence.
Add to the list of reasons to see it: A special showing of “Girl Climber” at the Crystal Theatre will benefit the climbing club at Glenwood Springs High School.
The showing, Dec. 3, was the idea of Trevor Doty, an environmental science teacher at GSHS who runs the climbing club which is currently composed of eight kids (four girls, four boys), though that number may pick up when the current school play ends.
Doty chose this film, he said, “because it sounded like more of a story of someone, rather than some person going back to the same 5.15 [top climbing level] over and over, and we see them fall and scream and get mad and try again. It’s more the broader story that draws me. ‘The Dawn Wall’ [2017] was an incredible film about Tommy Caldwell that goes into his life.”
Doty’s aim with the club, he said, is “to lessen the barrier for entry for kids who have never climbed.” The climbing-club fee is $75, which covers five evening visits to Eagle Climbing + Fitness during cold months; in warm weather, the weekly sessions take place on cliffs near No Name. Five gym sessions can go quickly, yet charging more money for the club would be a disincentive. Benefit proceeds will help fund more training time, also transportation and equipment.
When Doty phoned Will Grandbois, general manager of the theater under the new Crystal Theatre Alliance, Grandbois called back within an hour confirming. “This is exactly the kind of project that we want to support as a nonprofit,” Grandbois said. “It’s community-minded and that’s what we want to be.”
He had spoken to the film’s production company earlier this year but felt the theater needed a partner to bring in what might seem a niche film. “We got [an opportunity] that was a benefit and vibed with the mission, and it was a no-brainer,” he said. ”The people who will be reached by the climbing club are the people who’d want to see it.”
Harrington, central character in the film, was a stellar competition climber from her early teens. Over the years she won five national championships and, in 2006, a world title at Serre Chevalier, France. “Girl Climber” lays out layers of learning about El Cap from Honnold, who partners with her in support, and explores Harrington’s life with her husband, Adrian Ballinger, an Everest guide, and her mentorship by the great ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson of Telluride, killed in a tragic fall on Makalu, in Nepal, three years ago. It is a tale of trying, failing and gutting out setbacks on Golden Gate, a 33-pitch (i.e., ropelength) route on El Capitan with four sections of 5.13, meaning steep, fiercely difficult moves. “Girl Climber,” an exceedingly honest look at the ups and downs and attendant tragedy in Harrington’s journey, thrills us even before we find out whether or not she makes the goal.
The film has, sorry, an awful scene or two, especially of a climbing fall that ends with a ghastly thud as Harrington smacks her head. I saw the world premiere at Mountainfilm in Telluride last summer and reared up, shocked by the audio. (Be warned, I also cried buckets during the film, as did seatmates.)
Asked after the premiere whether she could have prevented her impact injury by wearing a helmet, Harrington said she usually does on El Cap, but sometimes removed it to negotiate a long, tight chimney and other rock features. She said, “I should have worn it.”
Doty, who has been climbing consistently for the past seven years, often taking adventure-climbing trips with his wife, Sarah Tory, a journalist, to Rocky Mountain National Park or faraway locales such as the Bugaboos, British Columbia, said that among the values he sees for kids in the sport is “that sense of continuing to try.” He said, “Climbing’s not easy. There’s always something you can be working at.
Tickets are $22 each. Purchase them at www.bit.ly/Crystal-showing or at the door using QR codes available in flyers at the theater, Bonfire, Plosky’s and the Carbondale Rec Center. Donations are welcome from non-attendees, but this showing is a chance to see a film born for the big screen, and it appeals to a broad audience.