Renowned rock climber! Beth Rodden, A LIGHT THROUGH THE CRACKS: A Climber's Story
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[0:43]Beth Rodden is the author of a light through the cracks, a climber story.
[0:46]Beth is one of the best female rock climbers of all time, and a globally recognized ambassador for the outdoor community.
[0:53]She has achieved a number of notable free climbs on El Capitan, the 3,000-foot monolith in Yosemite National Park, and has also established
[1:01]the hardest first ascent of a crack climb ever done by a woman.
[1:06]She has been climbing for 30 years, and she hopes to be climbing for 30 more.
[1:10]She lives with her family in California.
[1:12]Welcome, Beth. Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss your memoir a light through the cracks, a climber story.
[1:20]Congratulations.
[1:22]Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here.
[1:24]I have to say, I have you to blame for being tired because I couldn't stop reading your book the other night, and it scared me.
[1:34]Like parts of it were scary in your story, and I was so agitated by it that I couldn't sleep.
[1:40]I was like, I can't believe this woman went through this.
[1:43]I can't believe I feel like I just went through everything she went through.
[1:46]And I know this is only a small part of the big story, but still your experience has been being kidnapped.
[1:54]I mean, oh, my gosh, I just came and believe it.
[1:56]So well done in the writing for giving the reader the most immediate visceral experience of this perfect thing.
[2:06]Thank you. Yeah, it was a hard part to write about, but cathartic in a way as well to try and go back and unpack a lot of those memories and those experiences and put them onto the page and try and kind of like release them a little bit.
[2:23]So why don't you go back and tell listeners about that experience, but about the whole book and you are like one of the most elite climbers on the planet.
[2:34]So congratulations for all of your success. I can't believe, I mean, I watched Free Solo.
[2:38]So I feel like I can talk about climbing. I feel like I know enough to discuss.
[2:42]But what you've done, I don't even know how I'm just so impressed with you on so many levels. It's like amazing.
[2:49]Okay, so tell listeners about the book.
[2:51]Okay, the book is memoir of my life. It's obviously I'm a climber.
[2:56]I'm a professional climber. I've been a climber since I was in my early teens and so it's all I've kind of known.
[3:03]But I feel like that's kind of the backdrop to like a coming-of-age story and a processing trauma and becoming a mother and yeah, just trying to be a human in life.
[3:13]So the book covers a six-day kidnapping that I went through with my boyfriend at the time and two of our friends in Kyrgyzstan and then it kind of goes into how I buried that trauma.
[3:29]The climbing community back then was not really accepting or understanding of how to deal with trauma in a gentle, soft, compassionate way.
[3:40]It was very much a celebratory thing to skirt death in climbing back then.
[3:45]So I just dove back into climbing and like you said, I was able to sort of push the sport forward for the better part of a decade and really elevate my career in climbing in ways I never thought.
[4:00]But that all started to crumble after about 10 years. I went through a divorce. I found love. I got remarried. We had a child and honestly becoming a mom was sort of the biggest transformation that I went through it really was like this crystal clear reflection of how I was living in the world.
[4:21]And it inspired me honestly to go unpack all that trauma that happened 15 years earlier. And yeah, and continue on and see where I am today.
[4:32]I love how you end it with your mom, Bob, which is hilarious, which I'm sure I'm sure is a bad most people would even want.
[4:40]But that's another theme that really courses through the book is food and what it meant to you to be truly hungry when you were in captivity, right, for six days.
[4:51]And, you know, even the re-jiggering of your digestive system once you got back and all of that and introducing food again, but your lifetime history with how you felt about your body and food and climbing and deprivation and all of it.
[5:08]Can you talk a little bit about that?
[5:10]Absolutely. You know, I came into climbing when I was about 14 and I feel like I was this innocent kind of green kid that eight when she was hungry and didn't eat when she was hungry and didn't kind of differentiate between any types of food is good or bad or whatnot.
[5:24]But the climbing community was very much, even though it wasn't at the forefront of conversations everywhere. It was very prevalent that being thin was the way to success.
[5:35]So I'd have mentors and people I look up to say things just kind of, you know, subtly, like I would order bagels with cream cheese and they would say you're not going to get up anything today, rather than after eating that, or they would say something like, you know, I lose five pounds before every competition.
[5:53]And not in a malice way, I don't think, but more in a like here's a tip kind of way. And so early on in climbing I definitely developed a very disordered way of eating and how a relationship with food and very restrictive and very in control.
[6:11]And in Kyrgyzstan that was kind of highlighted because we only had a bar or a half of an energy bar per day each. So we were living on, you know, 100 maybe 200 calories each day for six days. So we were definitely very hungry.
[6:27]When we came back, yeah, that that cycle of trying to be restrictive and trying to be as light as possible definitely came back in full force.
[6:36]Tell me more and I know you wrote about it and it was so impactful, but actually being starved like by somebody and not having access to food. What happens to your brain and your thoughts and your body.
[6:54]Like what is what physically and mentally, what is that really like?
[6:58]Well, we were stationary all day and then so we were hidden all day and so we had just hours and hours and hours to think and let your brain spin and mine would always spin to the hardest thoughts and then also I think it was some sort of comforting thing that it would always spin to what I wanted to be eating.
[7:20]Also freezing so I always thought of hot food, but it also it just made processing or redirecting thoughts very difficult because all your focusing on is how hungry you are, which makes it a highlight how scared you are.
[7:36]As far as what happened to my body since we were laying down hidden all day, you could I could slowly start to feel my ribs poke out my hips poke out my clothes that I wore for six days straight became looser and looser.
[7:49]And so it was just this sort of decline in how I was able to process things mentally and then my body just became senior and skinny and skinny.
[7:59]The scene with your mom when she was talking about did you need a therapist when you got home right she'd offer you a therapist and she was like well I have a therapist and you're like well why do you need a therapist and she's like.
[8:11]She has to like take this deep breath at the doorway and say you know it's not easy knowing your child is you know at risk more than I risk across the world you can anything about it which of course is like everyone repair and nightmare.
[8:25]How much did your parents know and how if you were to do it again you know would you go right back and would you go right into therapy like because you didn't really deal with it at first like it was amazing you just like went back to life and I'm sorry to dwell on this part of it it's just so unique.
[8:45]Yeah not at all yeah I didn't go to therapy right away and therapy I feel like was kind of a shameful thing in the climbing community back then it kind of showed weakness is how people perceived it.
[8:58]And so yes if I were to do it all if I had to go through something like that again I think the my therapist would be probably one of my first phone calls after calling my parents.
[9:10]So I think it's an incredible tool if you're fortunate to be able to afford it and have the means to go and yes I mean my poor mom now being a mom I just can't.
[9:22]I can't imagine but at the time I was newly 20 and I just I couldn't understand like why why would you need this mom you didn't do anything.
[9:30]Oh my gosh you also had a scene with your dad that was really powerful I think as a parent I'm reading this both different both perspectives right as the first this could have a scene in the parents but you have this one scene where he says the wrong thing he shows you picture of your captor and it just sets you off and.
[9:47]He was like I'm so sorry and you had been communicating with him in such a positive way where you could say something like oh dad like the mortar is loud and because of his experience you knew that feeling and you almost didn't have to say more but.
[10:00]then this one sort of misstep like sets the ground shaking
[10:04]because he was like the most reliable and steady.
[10:07]Tell me about that and how this whole thing affected
[10:09]your parents and you and your relationships.
[10:13]And if and when it kind of you felt like back
[10:17]to baseline if you will.
[10:19]That I don't know if I felt back to baseline for many
[10:22]years after that with my parents.
[10:24]And not because they did anything wrong.
[10:28]Obviously none of us had any training in this.
[10:30]None of us knew what to do if one of the family members
[10:34]got kidnapped or whatnot.
[10:35]But yeah, with my dad, it always felt like as a competitor
[10:40]early on, I had all these superstitions.
[10:43]And my dad was always in both parents, both my mom and my dad
[10:46]were very good at like catering to the superstitions.
[10:48]Like I needed to eat at the olive garden
[10:50]before a competition.
[10:51]I needed to rent our car from Hertz.
[10:54]And so they were always really good at that.
[10:56]And then when my dad missed up a little bit,
[11:00]and obviously he would have no reason
[11:02]of knowing how to walk this line by showing me
[11:07]a picture of a capture, it just felt like such a break
[11:10]in the foundation of my understanding of how I could trust
[11:15]him and how he could help me along.
[11:17]Maybe too much is a crutch, you know?
[11:20]But I feel like once he was able, once we were able to actually
[11:25]even just talk later that conversation.
[11:27]And he was able to say, oh, I'm sorry, I had no idea.
[11:31]I feel like that started to build the baseline.
[11:33]But honestly, I feel like I couldn't even admit it to myself
[11:37]and then even talk to my parents about Kyrgyzstan
[11:40]until 15 years later.
[11:42]It was just something that was buried after that
[11:45]because I didn't know how to deal with it.
[11:48]Oh my gosh.
[11:49]And yet you surmount all these challenges, which seem
[11:52]really superhuman.
[11:54]So you have climbed the face of El Capitan
[11:58]like without ropes, basically.
[12:01]Well, yeah, it's a weird, it's a weird new on-sync climbing.
[12:04]So free soloing is without the ropes.
[12:07]And that's the movie everybody's seen with Alex.
[12:10]Free climbing means you use the ropes
[12:13]and all the gear for protection.
[12:14]But you're not allowed to grab them as to help you up,
[12:18]if that makes sense.
[12:19]You're just allowed to use the rock to hook line up.
[12:23]How did you do that?
[12:24]I don't even understand how it's possible.
[12:27]Yes, it's just a lot of training, a lot of preparation,
[12:32]baby steps, you don't just start climbing.
[12:35]And that's your first climb.
[12:36]I had many, many years of climbing in the gym,
[12:39]many, many years of climbing outside and slowly
[12:41]working up to it.
[12:42]So it's just a big puzzle.
[12:45]And you just start whittling away at the pieces.
[12:47]But you must have this different relationship
[12:51]with fear than most people.
[12:53]Most people can't even get up a ladder.
[12:56]I'm like seared bunk beds.
[12:59]And you're scaling the biggest fans in the world.
[13:02]What do you do with your fear?
[13:03]Do you not feel it?
[13:04]Do you not have it?
[13:06]Or do you just know how to cope with it so much better?
[13:09]You know, honestly, I think at the peak of my career, I buried it.
[13:14]It was there.
[13:15]I was not proud of it because I didn't
[13:18]think that most professional climbers should be scared.
[13:21]But I had a way of dealing with it and bearing it.
[13:25]Sort of, again, a baby step mentality.
[13:28]I would sit there.
[13:29]I would kind of talk to myself.
[13:30]And I'd say, OK, well, what are you afraid of?
[13:33]And I'd go through all the safety things that I had.
[13:35]And this road can hold a bus.
[13:37]And you're not way as much as a bus.
[13:40]And you have all these points of safety in.
[13:43]So I think it would just be this sort of methodical thing
[13:47]on how I would talk to myself about the fear,
[13:50]about the steps on how I was safe.
[13:52]And, but again, the first time each year that I would go up
[13:56]on our calf or be 3,000 feet in the air,
[13:59]it would be scary.
[14:00]And it would be this thing that I would slowly acclimate to.
[14:05]Wow.
[14:06]Just beyond impressed.
[14:08]And also, you had so many injuries along the way.
[14:10]Tell me about some of the climbing injuries
[14:13]and the ones search towards the end of your career.
[14:16]Now, how is your body all of it?
[14:19]Yeah, I've had my fair share of injuries.
[14:22]And towards the end of my career,
[14:23]I feel like my body just kind of became unraveled a little bit
[14:27]and broke down.
[14:29]I think with all the compounding stress of bearing
[14:32]through your stand and a divorce and all that sort of thing,
[14:34]it just really added up.
[14:35]And my body was the way that it manifested in injuries.
[14:40]So I've dug in dozens of finger injuries.
[14:43]That's something that's really probably not common
[14:46]for most people because you don't think
[14:49]that you'll injure your fingers.
[14:50]But for climbing, that's one of our biggest tools.
[14:53]And that's one of our biggest assets.
[14:55]So little pieces of connective tissue would pop and tear
[14:58]in my fingers.
[15:00]I've injured my shoulders a bunch of my dad's surgery
[15:03]and broken my ankles.
[15:04]But nowadays, I feel like I'm able to climb.
[15:07]And yes, I get injuries along the way.
[15:09]But I don't feel like it's as at the rapid pace
[15:12]that it once was, probably also because I'm less frantic
[15:17]to get up that sand hill.
[15:19]I'm not running up that sand hill anymore.
[15:21]I have a much calmer pace with climbing and with my body.
[15:26]But you're still doing it.
[15:27]Yeah, absolutely.
[15:28]I did it yesterday, so.
[15:30]Oh my gosh.
[15:31]Wow.
[15:31]And how does being a mom play into all of it?
[15:34]Gosh, being a mom was honestly,
[15:38]when I went through the biggest transformation,
[15:40]I think I think climbing and being an athlete
[15:43]is amazing, but it's a very selfish pursuit, you know?
[15:46]Every day, it's just how can you
[15:48]make focus on you to push your desires forward?
[15:52]And so becoming a mom really slowed me down in that way.
[15:56]I also had a really tough physical postpartum.
[15:59]So I really had to slow down and let my body heal
[16:03]and understand this kind of new body that I was in.
[16:07]That I had never heard about.
[16:09]I'd never experienced.
[16:10]I didn't understand how to let things like a prolapse heal.
[16:15]I knew how to heal a finger injury,
[16:17]but I had no idea how to be able to stand up right
[16:21]without being in pain.
[16:23]And nowadays, I feel like it's also slowed me down in each day,
[16:28]right?
[16:28]I'm less frantic.
[16:29]I just try and go out.
[16:32]And as much as you can enjoy a day out in the woods
[16:35]with a young kid, it's also very sporadic and very frantic.
[16:39]It's been a pretty amazing thing, honestly,
[16:43]to see how I've been able to change,
[16:45]just because as an athlete, I thought I had it all figured out.
[16:51]I was winning somehow in life.
[16:53]And but it's amazing.
[16:54]It's open my eyes to another way to walk through this life
[16:59]in many different ways.
[17:00]Well, I was so pleased to see that your sponsors
[17:02]stuck with you when you decided to shift
[17:05]and that telling women stories, women athletes, aging, not aging,
[17:10]but transitioning through different parts of their career
[17:13]is so important.
[17:14]And how do we do that for women?
[17:16]And how does the community support them?
[17:18]And it seems like you have felt very supported
[17:20]throughout, which is wonderful.
[17:22]Absolutely.
[17:23]Yeah.
[17:24]I mean, climbing in sports in general
[17:26]have traditionally not been there to support women
[17:29]through pregnancy and becoming a mom.
[17:30]It seemed like sort of the unspoken time
[17:33]when you bowed out or you accomplished everything
[17:36]and you retired or took a different role.
[17:39]And that wasn't my experience.
[17:42]That was my biggest fear.
[17:44]But my sponsors stuck with me.
[17:46]And we've really been able to develop a different path
[17:50]and be in a professional climber and making climbing
[17:54]more equitable, talking about ways to keep climbers
[18:00]and keep athletes relevant and impacting the community.
[18:04]So yeah, it's been a pretty eye-opening experience.
[18:07]Well, some people feel that writing a book
[18:10]is like climbing a mountain, which you have now done both.
[18:13]And I'm sure that in comparison to what you normally
[18:15]do, the book writing itself was a piece of cake.
[18:18]But maybe that's not true.
[18:19]How was that experience for you?
[18:22]Absolutely not a piece of cake.
[18:25]It was very hard, very long and arduous.
[18:28]I couldn't have done it without even
[18:30]marked the two people that really helped me.
[18:32]And but I do think it was kind of like a big climbing project
[18:37]or whatnot in that there's all these pieces
[18:40]that you want to put together to make the final thing.
[18:43]And that was pretty cool to see how it had similarities.
[18:47]But honestly, if I found it way more difficult,
[18:50]I don't know how all of you that are actual officers and writers
[18:55]do it.
[18:56]It's an amazing experience.
[18:58]It's fascinating.
[18:59]But yeah, I think I'm much more apt to comment
[19:02]rather than I've ever seen.
[19:04]In the book, you were really disappointed
[19:06]when you went on the today's show back when you were 20.
[19:08]And Katie Kirk wasn't there that day.
[19:10]Did you ever get a chance to talk to her?
[19:12]I've never met Katie, no.
[19:13]Oh my gosh.
[19:14]OK.
[19:15]Well, I'm going to try to put you in touch, not like we're BFS
[19:18]or anything, but I write for Katie Kirk Media.
[19:20]So let me see if there's any way.
[19:22]Oh, thank you.
[19:23]Yeah, that was a big deal.
[19:26]A big let down, but it was all good.
[19:28]Oh, my gosh.
[19:30]So what now, looking forward, you're
[19:32]going to continue climbing.
[19:33]Are you going to read any more?
[19:35]Are there new interests?
[19:37]Like, how are you?
[19:37]What are you thinking about for the next couple of years
[19:39]of your life?
[19:41]I hope I can keep climbing as long as my body allows.
[19:43]It just feels good to me.
[19:45]It's like yoga or something.
[19:46]It just feels right.
[19:47]And then as far as writing goes, I don't know.
[19:50]I think this is the book that this is the book.
[19:55]Yeah, I can't.
[19:56]I don't foresee me for suing her.
[20:00]under taking another big, big writing project,
[20:02]but you know, you never know in life.
[20:04]Yeah, you never know.
[20:06]Do you have advice both for,
[20:08]well, really for anyone who's trying to get through anything
[20:10]because I feel like your resilience is off the charts.
[20:15]So how can you impart that wisdom to others?
[20:20]I think the thing that I try and think about with anything
[20:23]is just the baby step mentality, you know?
[20:25]I think I can get really overwhelmed by seeing everything
[20:28]in front of me and not understanding how to get
[20:31]from the start to the finish.
[20:33]But then if you, I can break it down.
[20:35]I feel like that happened in captivity
[20:38]when we were held hostage.
[20:39]It's like obviously you didn't know when the end was,
[20:41]but if you can just get through this minute
[20:43]and this hour that, you know, that works
[20:45]same with a big climb, you know?
[20:48]If I think about it as this whole big thing,
[20:50]it doesn't, it's a bit overwhelming.
[20:52]And so I just try and break it down or with anything.
[20:55]Honestly, just baby step it out.
[20:58]Oh my gosh.
[20:58]Are there books that you've read since that have helped you
[21:01]or helped even for the climbing part
[21:04]or the mother-in-parard or the hostage part
[21:07]or any of it has, has there been a book or two
[21:10]or whatever that have been really helpful for you?
[21:13]I really love going into the oils books.
[21:15]I feel like it's just amazing to show the human part
[21:19]of humans and I feel like that was really instrumental
[21:23]to see, oh, yeah, we're not machines, you know,
[21:26]we're just, we're humans and we do our best.
[21:28]So, her books, I absolutely love.
[21:31]Amazing.
[21:32]Great.
[21:32]Beth, thank you so much.
[21:34]Wow, what a story.
[21:35]It like really got into my bones.
[21:38]You know, I just felt it and that's a gift
[21:41]to be able to do that in writing.
[21:43]And again, what you've survived is super human.
[21:49]And it's amazing.
[21:51]You know, I'm really glad I learned your story.
[21:54]Thank you so much for having me.
[21:55]I really appreciate it.
[21:56]Okay, congrats.
[21:58]Thank you. Bye-bye.
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