Aug 08 2018

Ferguson Fire

Climbing
by Beth

The Ferguson fire has been raging for over three weeks in and around Yosemite. Two firefighters lost their lives battling this fire. Both left behind families. I've pasted links below to their GoFundMe pages as well as to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation and the California Fire Foundation. I cannot imagine the loss for their families. For anyone who loves Yosemite, please consider donating to each of these causes. Firefighters work tirelessly and selflessly to save lives, homes, and places that we all love, and I hope that through our donations...

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May 29 2018

Climbing, Travel and … Napping!?

Kids, Motherhood, Pregnancy, Travel
by Beth

Hi Beth,   First, thank you for truly being an encouragement, inspiration, and role model to all of the mommies out there trying to navigate their new roll as life giver while also trying to remember and live their identities as adventurers. Certainly a hard and rewarding transition.I loved the blog about the third wheel, thank goodness for them.   This May my husband and will setting out to climb throughout North Carolina, then on to Wyoming and Utah with my son Cedar, just turned two April 10th. Some camping, some living...

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May 24 2018

Climbing Postpartum, Recovery and Prolapse

Kids, Motherhood, Pregnancy
by Beth

Hi Beth -   Your blog has really helped me through my pregnancy and early days of motherhood. I gave birth to a wonderful baby boy in October last year. But, 6 months later, I feel like my body is falling apart. Apparently I have only a mild bladder prolapse but I can feel the pressure all day every day. Before having my baby, and during pregnancy too, I would climb, hike, cycle, do yoga...

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May 22 2018

Athletes, their children and social media

Climbing, Kids, Motherhood, Pregnancy
by Beth

“Can’t wait for the adventures ahead with this little man.”   That’s the caption I wrote on my first Instagram as a mom. I posted it from the hospital bed as I held a seven-pound infant to my bare chest. I hadn’t slept in over 36 hours, couldn’t stand upright, but had been through the most profound experience of my life. It’s human nature to want to share these impactful moments.   Over the previous nine months, I had documented my pregnancy and everything that came with it on social media. I...

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Apr 24 2018

Weekend Warriors

Climbing, Kids, Travel
by Beth

As a professional climber, I’ve avoided weekends when the roads were full of traffic and the crags were littered with people. Saturday and Sunday have always been, by choice, my rest days. It worked out perfectly. I climbed during the week with other abnormal people (e.g., professional climbers or vacationers) and lived in a lovely little bubble.   During those years, it never occurred to me how few weekend warriors I actually knew or interacted with. Then I met Randy, my husband, a bonafide working man with a commute to an actual...

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Mar 01 2018

Climbing With Kids: In Praise of the Third Wheel

Climbing, Kids, Motherhood
by Beth

As climbers, when we become parents, most of us become boulderers by default. I can feel the cringe from some Valley locals now, but at least for my family, it’s true. Fortunately, Randy and I love bouldering, but there’s no doubt that bouldering can been the easiest form of climbing with kiddo in tow. Single-pitch cragging almost always means finding a third person so that one parent is able to watch and attend to the child (unless you are in the pre-mobile stage or self entertaining stage, both of which...

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Jan 11 2018

Katie Lambert Interview: Thoughts on climbing and decisions not to have kids

Climbing, Interviews, Kids
by Beth

For anyone that knows Katie Lambert, she's an inspiration. Not only with her climbing achievements, but with her insightful and thoughtful way of approaching life. She's not one to jump on a popular bandwagon nor to promote things that she isn't passionate about, which I find incredibly refreshing these days. Katie is one of the best and well rounded climbers out there, proficient in the alpine, sport and boulders and has a tenacity that gets her up daunting climbs.   I spent a fair bit of time talking to her about having...

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Dec 19 2017

Jen Bisharat Interview: Climbing Pregnant and Climbing with Kids

Interviews, Kids, Motherhood, Pregnancy
by Beth

I first met Jen at a Triple Crown competition over a decade ago. She was one of those undercover locals that crushed all the visiting professional climbers. Since then she's gone on to quietly become one of America's most accomplished female sport climbers while simultaneously being a Kindergarten teacher, a fact that should blow anyone's mind. With multiple 5.14's under her belt, she's ticked off some of the hardest routes in Rifle.   A little over a year and a half ago, she and her husband Andrew welcomed their daughter Piper into...

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Sep 13 2017

Fear

Kids, Motherhood
by Beth

Fear and Afar: From Kyrgyzstan to the Bay   Fifteen years after being held hostage for six days by a group of Islamic rebels in Kyrgyzstan, I picked up the phone and called a therapist. I had spoken to her a couple of times about starting therapy, but had never pulled the trigger. I was too scared to go down that dark road. Too scared to open those wounds.   But … I also wanted to be able to function in my life. My fears and paranoia were affecting my child,...

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Apr 11 2017

Outside Magazine and Being Vulnerable

Climbing, featured, Motherhood, Pregnancy
by Beth

A few years ago I wrote a piece about our beloved dog Max, who had just died. It was the most personal piece of writing that I’d shared with the public since my divorce. To say I was nervous and afraid to share my emotions so openly would be an understatement. But Max had had such an immense and positive impact on me that I almost felt as if I owed it to him to write down my thoughts and feelings and put it all out into the world, regardless...

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