Our hosts, Erik and Jeff, speak with climber extraordinaire, Maureen "Mo" Beck. They discuss her career as a world-renowned one-handed climber and her journey from scrambling rock faces in Maine at 12 years old to winning world championships.
Maureen Beck was born without her left hand, but that didn’t stop her from picking up the sport of climbing at the age of 12. Now based in Colorado’s Front Range, Mo spends her nights training at the gym and her days climbing all over the American southwest. She works closely with the adaptive climbing community as an instructor with Paradox Sports and is the Chair of the USAC Paraclimbing Committee.
As a competitive climber, she has won 6 national titles, a gold medal at the 2014 Paraclimbing World Championships in Spain, and defended that title with a gold medal at the 2016 World Championships in Paris. In 2018, she went on her first alpine expedition to the Northwest Territories in Canada’s Nahanni National Park where she and fellow adaptive climber Jim Ewing attempted the legendary Lotus Flower Tower. Maureen starred in the 2017 Film Stumped which has won numerous awards and toured hundreds of cities all over the world, and in the 2019 film Adaptive. Mo is an athlete for The North Face, Petzl, Sterling Rope, TRUBLUE Climbing, Gnarly Nutrition, and Scarpa.
In addition to climbing, Mo loves gardening, her chickens and dogs, sleeping in cars, and fine Scotch whiskey.
Resources:
Watch Stumped on Amazon Prime
Learn more about the film Adaptive
Watch Adaptive on Vimeo
A Guide to Rock Climbing terminology