Emily Seelenfreund

After a successful collegiate athletic career as a three-time National Championship winner with the University of Alabama’s wheelchair basketball team, graduating Harvard Law School and establishing herself as a disability rights lawyer, Emily was looking for a new challenge. But the first time she rolled into a climbing gym, she had no idea if this sport would be accessible for her. Growing up with Osteogenesis Imperfecta and using a wheelchair or crutches for mobility, she was used to lots of fitness opportunities being off-limits. She quickly realized that climbing was different and fell in love with a sport that was inclusive of pretty much everybody. Emily dove into the competitive world of paraclimbing, most recently placing first in her category at the 2021 USA paraclimbing nationals and third at the 2021 Los Angeles paraclimbing world cup. Her climbing goals include making a podium at the next paraclimbing world championship, conquering her fear of lead climbing, and finally mastering a one-armed pull-up. Beyond her personal climbing goals, she is incredibly passionate about expanding access to adaptive climbing; Emily co-founded the 501(c)(3) non-profit ParaCliffHangers in 2019, an organization whose mission is to foster community, strength, adventure, inclusion, and equality through rock climbing by providing opportunities for people with all types of disabilities to overcome mountains. Thanks to the support of Touchstone she has been able to establish a weekly adaptive climbing night at Berkeley Ironworks and looks forward to continuing to expand the Bay Area’s adaptive climbing community. Emily’s favorite part about climbing is that it’s inherently adaptable and that paraclimbing is a natural extension of that. After all, she may be only four feet, two inches tall, but with her +10 APE index, she usually surprises herself with how far she can reach.