- Our next guest learned
how to rock climb when she was just
eight months old. Two months later, she learned
how to walk. From Flagstaff, Arizona,
please welcome one-year-old Ellie and her
parents, Rachel and Zach. Hi, Ellie, hi. There's a lot
of people here, huh? Hi, precious.
Okay, so you are both rock climbers. - Correct.
- We are, yes. My husband Zach's been climbing
for about 20 years, and I've been climbing
for 14 years. - Okay, and so--
and she's your only child. - Right.
- She is, yes. - Okay, so when and how
did this start? That she would just climb
a wall? Ellie's really been in the
rock climbing gym since she was born. Her first outing was at about
two week's old, and we took her
to the climbing gym, and then shortly thereafter,
she would come and join mine and Zach's training
sessions and climbing sessions and got to know the climbing
community pretty well. And then,
since then she has-- - When you say "got to know
the climbing community," what does that mean?
- Zach. - Well, that means watching
a bunch of guys with their shirts off
in the climbing gym grunt really loudly
as they go up the walls. - Oh. A lot of women
are gonna start climbing soon. - Yeah come on.
Join me. - All right. And she--and she
didn't even walk at that point. both: No.
- She started climbing when she was about
eight months old. I think we got her, like,
actually grabbing holds and feeling out the wall
at about six months old. She was climbing on her own
at eight months old, and then she walked
at the later part of ten months. She was solid by 11 months
walking. - Well, it's amazing
when I watched this for the first time,
she literally will get stuck and realize,
and to be that young to realize she has to go
backwards and grab-- to be able to grab another-- - Yeah. I think that Zach and I
always knew that kids are natural climbers,
but to see her actually go through the thought process
of figuring out where to put your hand,
where to put your foot, and taking her time
and not getting frustrated and coming off the wall was
really impressive to me personally. - Yeah, that would be
frustrating for her to-- God, I love
that little outfit. So, and no helmet,
no pads, and--and but she has a rope,
right? Isn't-- - Well, it's a little bit
different. So, she has pads. She does what's right now
called bouldering. Bouldering is climbing closer to
the ground without ropes, but usually you have mats. So like in the gym,
a lot of the videos that we have of her,
there's usually a mat that's probably 12 to 16 inches
thick, so it's a pretty beefy mat, and we're always there behind
her to spot her. - Yeah. - So it--it's one of those
things that, you know, we're always behind her,
always there, so if she does fall,
we're there to catch her, and then she has the mats
below her if she--if she needs it.
- Yeah. Um, well, I hope you're there
to catch her, yeah. You don't just go off
and grab a coffee or something. - No.
- Not usually, no. - Yeah.
She's so bored by this. So let's, um, and she--
is she-- her crib,
'cause she climbs, you can't even have her
in a regular crib, right? - Well, yeah, I mean,
early on with one of her early videos,
she was climbing-- I built a wall for her
in her bedroom right next to her crib, and so
she's had that in her room since she was probably,
you know, four weeks old. - Yeah.
- We just keep the climbing to a controlled environment
on the climbing wall. - That's amazing.
She's so advanced and so-- and bored.
[laughter] All right, so she's gonna climb,
right? - Yeah.
- We would like you to climb, Ellie.
Do you want to climb? - Ellie, do you want
to climb? - Yeah. Whoo.
- All right. All right. Let's go climb.
- All right. - Climb?
- Good job. - I would offer,
but she just-- - All right.
- There's a dinosaur up there. - There's a dinosaur for you
right there. [growling]
Go get it. Good job. - Here. Come over
in the middle here. Daddy's right behind you. - There you go. Good job.
- Da-da. - Yeah, da-da.
- You're doing awesome, Ellie. - Yeah.
- Yay. - How you doing? - Go get that dinosaur.
- You going up there? Here, I'm still
right here. - Get your feet up. - Climb.
- You get the foot-- Yeah, you're climbing.
Here. You got that one? - Good job.
Feet up. - We're going to go
right to that one. Perfect.
- Nice. Awesome.
High step, yep. - There we go.
- You got it. Yeah.
Nice, Ellie. That one there.
Good job. [cheers and applause] Good job, sweetie.
Foot. - She's--she's--
- Hand. Get that dinosaur.
It says, "Rawr." [cheers and applause] - Okay, well, we got you a-- we got you a gift
because we realized her bed is an issue, so... - Oh.
Thank you so much. - So she can--
- Oh, that's awesome. - Thank you so much.
That's beautiful. - Climb.
- Ah, this is gonna-- this is--you may not
thank us for this.
