20-Month-Old Baby Wall Climbs Excellently Without Safety Harness

Wall climbing is a fun and exciting activity that adventurous adults enjoy. It is not meant for those who have fear in heights and it takes guts to actually make it to the very top. Little did we know that this type of extreme adventure can be done by a 20-month-old kid better than most adults would fair. Take that, she doesn’t have a harness!

The videos of the cute toddler scaling the walls without a safety harness went viral across the Internet this week, getting millions of views on Facebook in just a few days.

Rachael and Zak Farmer, the parents of Ellie Farmer, both competitive climbers are looking forward for their 20 months old daughter to join in the family pastime. Ellie was climbing with her mother throughout her pregnancy and has been a fixture at their local gym in Flagstaff, Arizona, her entire life.

“She’s really been part of the climbing community since birth,” said Zak Farmer, 31. “When she was first opening her eyes, she was at the gym, seeing climbers climb.”

Ellie was climbing before she could walk and scaled her first wall around 8 months.

Watch the video here:

We were anticipating in our seats throughout the entire video and we didn’t expect that a kid that young can possess the physical and mental requirements of wall climbing. It sure is built for kids but the skills she showed were amazing!

Zak even built a climbing wall that measures 8-feet in height, complete with a safety mat around it and placed it beside Ellie’s bed. So basically, Ellie is climbing everyday, doing her favorite activities, which are hanging, gripping and exploring her very own climbing wall. The Farmers think that engaging children with such activities will enable them to develop their fine and gross motor skills, as well as their confidence.

“She has to think out the movement, decide where to place her foot, where to place her hand,” Rachael Farmer said. “She’ll maybe fall backward and engages that core and sits back up.

“When she turns around and gets excited, that’s exactly what I want for her.”

Bouldering is Ellie’s most common climbing technique, which entails short movements at lower heights but requires power. With this, her parents can always reach her should she encounter problems up there. Also, since Ellie is still too small to fit to a harness, the Farmers said their baby could easily bump into the wall should she fall and that would be dangerous. Ellie just wears special leather shoes with soft soles to aid her is climbing.

Nonetheless, the Farmers allow Ellie to experience the feel of falling as it is part of the climb. Whenever Ellie is about a foot away from the ground, her parents would let her feel the soft mat so she’d know how it feels like to fall. And Ellie’s reaction so far? Oh well, nothing but giggles.

Although Ellie has tons of followers now, critics can’t help but express how negatively they feel about the entire thing. But Rachel said she just ignores them because she knows that she is a good parent and she is doing everything to keep her child safe whilst doing these activities.

Rachel also said that she even have to rid her daughter out of the gym. Looks like we are seeing a future sports star here! What do you think? Let us know in the comment box below and share this post to your family and friends too!