As far as adventure couples go, it鈥檚 pretty tough to top Adrian Ballinger and Emily Harrington. Adrian is a world-class mountaineer, skier, and mountain guide who has led expeditions on five continents, while Emily is one of the accomplished female climbers in the world. They鈥檙e also up for just about anything, which made them the perfect candidates to load up the new 718 Porsche Boxster and take off on two epic weekends.
The two met in 2012 at Camp 2 on Everest, but have been similar trajectories for decades.聽Adrian, 39, climbed his first high-altitude peak when he was 17, and started full-time climbing and skiing at 21. He鈥檚 the only American who has skied two 8,000-meter peaks and the first to summit three 8,000-meter peaks in only three weeks. In 2004, Adrian founded Alpenglow Expeditions, which has become one of the most preeminent international mountaineering guide services on the planet. This past Spring, Adrian and photographer Cory Richards attempted to summit Everest without the help of any supplemental oxygen鈥攄ocumenting the whole thing on Snapchat, called #EverestNoFilter.
Emily has been a prominent figure in the climbing scene since she was a teenager. After being introduced to the sport at 10 years, she went on to win five U.S. National Championships. Since then, she鈥檚 focused more on outdoor climbing, becoming the second American female to climb 5.14b and claiming the first female ascents of 14 other routes 5.13D or harder. Most recently, she鈥檚 turned her attention to expedition climbing, summiting Mt Everest and Mt Blanc in 2012 and Ama Dablam in 2013.
When they鈥檙e not pinballing around the world scaling peaks, the couple resides in Lake Tahoe, which is where we caught up with them this past summer, sending them first to climb an iconic big wall in Yosemite National Park and then to Northern New Mexico for a multisport weekend. Click here to watch the the videos.