Posted by: Shauna Farnell
Some of the most unsung athletic feats of the GoPro Mountain Games happen on the speed climbing wall.
Take it from World Cup speed climber and coach Merritt Ernsberger, who guided a clinic for all ages and athlete levels on the climbing tower in the Bulleit Hangout at Golden Peak on Friday, June 5 – the same wall that will host Saturday’s YETI North American Cup Series Vail – Speed Finals.
“I don’t know how you do that,” said a newbie climber attending the clinic, who made it about 10 feet up the 50-foot tower before petering out. “It’s so hard.”
“A lot of practice,” Ernsberger said, before coaching the climber to lead with his legs. “That’s where your power is.”
A few clinic participants made it all the way up the wall. The most elite among them made it up in just over seven seconds.
At last year’s Mountain Games NACS speed climbing finals, the fastest man – Michael Hom – made it up the wall in a mind-boggling 5.14 seconds, while the fastest woman – Olympian and U.S. speed climbing record holder, Emma Hunt – clocked in at 6.44 seconds.
“A ton of repetition is super important,” Ernsberger said. “In this sport, there’s a very small margin for error. Any sort of mistake can be the difference between falling or winning a race.”
After repetition, strength training is the most crucial to speed success. Leg strength is incredibly important, because, according to Ernsberger, “legs are the driving force” and “arms are for stability.”
Speed climbing may appear repetitive and simple on the surface (the fastest climber up the wall wins), but as Ernsberger explains, there is more far more going on than most people realize.
“The biggest nuance is on the mental side of things,” he said. “You train the same wall over and over and over again and even though it’s the same wall, there’s differences in the texture or the holds. The auto belay might feel a bit different if it retracts faster. So having that mentality of not getting frustrated, dealing with the situation whatever it is, and then also being adaptable, to me, that’s the most important difference between speed and other disciplines.”
Also, when speed climbing races are won or lost by mere tenths of a second, the right technique goes a long way.
“I like the problem-solving in it,” Ernsberger said. “You’re always trying to figure out like, should I turn my foot this way, or push a little harder so I’m a bit higher at this spot? There’s a ton of little things you can do to shave off time. You’re always playing through those.”
For spectators, speed climbing might just be the most exciting discipline to watch at the GoPro Mountain Games. As the novice climbers at Ernsberger’s clinic profoundly realized, firing up a 50-foot wall like a real-life Spiderman or Spiderwoman truly does take superhuman skill. To witness it is a true show, and compared to other climbing disciplines, it’s easy to understand.
USA Climbing judge Steve Baker, whose son Matthew is competing in the 2026 NACS Vail finals after placing sixth in qualifying, believes there is no greater spectacle in climbing.
“They’re running anywhere between five and ten seconds. You get to watch them go and you see immediately which guy [or girl] won,” Baker said. “Another thing that’s really awesome and amazing with this is that it’s over in an hour. Not like bouldering, which is three hours, and you’re like, I see them falling in the same spot. Did I see somebody get to the top? You see how tall this tower is and you’re just like, woah. It could take six minutes to get to the top of the lead wall, which is the same height. Speed is the best because of this.”
Don’t miss the Men’s and Women’s YETI North American Cup Series Vail – Speed finals in the Bulleit Hangout at Golden Peak on Saturday, June 6 at 2:00 p.m. Download the Mountain Games app and add the event to your schedule to make sure you catch all the action.
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