Women Who Rock
Three inspiring females who happen to be climbers
By Devon Fredericksen
As I got to know the climbing scene in Bishop last summer, the names of three women repeatedly surfaced in conversation: Lisa Bedient, Marsha Tucker and Paula Flakser. Their reputations as climbers seemed to linger in the local lore. But their defining attributes stem not from the fact that they are badass climbers who just happen to be female, but that they are inspiring women who happen to be climbers.
After graduating from high school, Lisa Bedient, now 41, decided to take the road less traveled—the road that led her out of Polk, Neb.
“No one expected you to do anything besides getting a house and having kids,” Bedient said of the traditional lifestyle in her hometown.
During an post-high school internship at Olympic National Park in Washington state, Bedient befriended a park ranger who introduced her to rock climbing.
“I felt like a natural,” Bedient said. “I didn’t have that sense of fear, and it felt so fun and intuitive.”
At 24 Bedient landed a job at Yosemite National Park and climbed all the 5.9 classics in a summer, and the experience confirmed to her that there are other routes in life besides becoming a housewife.
While Bedient was renouncing the road to motherhood, Marsha Tucker was already a practicing parent. She was just 19 when she became pregnant with the first of three children, and she struggled with a messy marriage while raising her kids. Tragedy struck her household when Tucker’s mentally disabled son, Jake, passed away at age 23 from kidney failure.
Tucker started climbing at age 42, becoming a solid V8 boulderer while coping with her son’s illness. Following Jake’s untimely death, she and her new husband moved from San Diego to Bishop, where she could focus on climbing—both her new passion and her medicine through the grieving process.
Now 57, Tucker was once dubbed “The Older Lady Who Cranks Hard.” She has a reputation in the bouldering world for clearing out the younger guys who can’t match her strength. While some egos are bruised by her talent, others view Tucker as an inspiration—someone who has kept her body strong and is defying the presumed limits of age.
“I think climbing is all about problem-solving. You also have to be pretty stubborn, and you have to endure,” Tucker said. “Everyone endures pain at some point, so you have to be into pain—painful shoes, spraining or straining, getting blisters or [having] skin ripped off. You need to have the fortitude to continue.”
Tucker joked that the emergency-room staff know her at the hospital. Sprained ankles, whiplash, torn tendons, a broken foot and hip problems all are part of her medical history. Despite her physical pain and scolding from her husband, injuries usually aren’t reason enough to prevent her from climbing. She’ll wrap up an ankle, cut out the heel of a climbing shoe—whatever it takes to get on the rock again.
“I love to climb,” Tucker said. “Maybe I climb seven days a week for weeks on end, and maybe I climb too much. But it’s because I like it so much. And when Jake was really sick, it’s what got me through it. It’s what put my mind at rest.”
After discovering her love for climbing, Paula Flakser, 31, gave up her access to big rock concerts in exchange for big rocks. Flakser is known as much for her feisty, animated, often-uncensored demeanor as she is for her climbing capability.
“Climbers are monomaniacal, obsessive-compulsive weirdos,” Flakser said. “It’s really the most all-consuming sport I’ve ever come across. It really takes over climbers’ lives. You get a group of climbers together in a room and all they talk about is climbing.”
Flakser fell into climbing in Portland, Ore. She and her boyfriend took a road trip to Joshua Tree after a 90-day-straight run of city rain. Within seconds of climbing the V3 Gunsmoke traverse in tennis shoes, she knew she’d found her passion.
“It feels like a creative process,” Flakser said. “It’s totally cerebral, and I love the creative movement. I love the way it makes my body feel.”
A consistent V8 climber, Flakser prefers dynamic bouldering moves over calculated technical work. In contrast, Bedient said her body is most at ease when she is harnessed to a rope, climbing up crack features.
“While crack-climbing, without thinking about it, my body just knows what to do,” Bedient said.
Bedient said she can comfortably lead most 5.12 crack and sport climbs. But in 2001 she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and thought climbing was over for her. Bedient climbed infrequently for the next six years, falling off of 10a’s because her hands didn’t work right.
When Bedient was strong enough to climb again, her goal was to climb Astroman, a legendary Yosemite Valley 5.11c route put up by John Bachar, Ron Kauk and John Long. During the worst part of her illness, she said, she regretted never climbing it. Now, having achieved her goal, she considers it one of her biggest accomplishments.
“The route has this burly wide section on it, the Harding Slot, and you hear that it makes grown men cry,” Bedient said. “You don’t hear about a lot of girls climbing Astroman, so it was fun to be a woman who could do it, to have the skills.”
Bedient lives in Bishop and works as a cook for the White Mountain Research Station. All three women now call the little Owens Valley town their home, and the surrounding area their playground. At age 21, when Flakser had been climbing for three months, she visited Bishop for the first time.
“I love rock ‘n’ roll and cities and wearing high heels and dresses,” Flakser said. “I knew I had to bide my time until I was ready for a real change in lifestyle.”
Now a bartender in Mammoth Lakes, Flakser said she wouldn’t trade big-city style for her small-town life.
“People who are here on vacation say, ‘You’re so lucky.’ But it’s not luck. It’s deciding what you want to do and doing it,” Flakser said. “For the average climber here, the mundane and the everyday is most people’s two-week vacation. It’s a pretty amazing life.”
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