Mothers’ Guide To Nature

Four women, based in Chamonix Mont Blanc, with lives shaped by the mountains. Two of them had just gotten pregnant, and two already have teenage children.

Based in Chamonix and a mountain enthusiast, I am friends with many mountain athletes. I am also in that age where most of my friends face the question of whether they want to become parents.

Rebecca Murray is a British Mountain Leader and Louisa Reynolds a British Mountain Guide. Both are based in Chamonix, France. Both are pregnant and took the time to talk with me about their experiences. It seems that there are things that came as a surprise to them in their journey as mountain professionals and mothers-to-be. Strength tests that they did not expect to be taking part in. As I am not planning to have children of my own, I was moved by their struggles. 

The topic is still an uncomfortable one to the wider community. Yet, it has been done before, right? I noted some questions that resulted from my conversations with them and asked two of the strongest local professional athletes and mothers of teenagers, Caroline George and Martina Čufar, to join the discussion.  

Rebecca Murray, International Mountain Leader from Scotland

“Is there a policy against that?” Beccs asked her boss.

“No. It should be fine.”

“Well, I am just going to send them an email so they don’t get shocked on arrival when they see me!”

Rebecca, or Beccs to her friends, is a Celtic beauty with bright hair and green-blue eyes. She grew up in a Scottish house that did not always have enough heat. The winters were still cold then, and icicles would sometimes form inside. Her cheerful nature took her outdoors instead of inwards, like others around her. The rawness of life made more sense in the hills, so she followed that path until she became an International Mountain Leader and Climbing Instructor. She climbed her way to the Alps, where she would take tourists from around the world on multi-day hikes skirting massive mountains four times bigger than those she grew up around. Soon enough, she was climbing those very mountains in her free time. Here, the warm sun would reflect off the glaciers and icefalls. Now five months into her pregnancy, Beccs has a bit more to think about when leading her clients on the hike from Chamonix to Zermatt.

Ten days later, and after 225 km of hiking, she arrives with her group to Zermatt with its iconic Matterhorn that everyone dreams of climbing. Beccs has climbed and skied similar alpine terrain. The sight of it would usually get her into planning her next adventure, yet now all she is looking forward to is some rest for her swollen feet. They couldn’t have arrived even a day later. Her body was changing fast, and she wondered how long she would be able to carry on rock climbing now that her baby Isla was hurrying to experience life for herself. Beccs was still climbing on a top rope despite the odd looks she had to endure while securing her pregnant belly over a climbing harness with a clever DIY sling system. This felt like a challenge to her lifestyle. Having children earlier would have stopped her from getting to where she is today. Yet why stop moving forward after having them?

“What will people think when they see me bringing a baby to the crag?” She wondered.

Beccs reached her happiness in the Alps. Now she wanted to secure some space for her and Isla in the climbers’ hearts. She wanted to introduce her baby to the home she had found outdoors. Were there other people like them here in Chamonix?

Louisa Reynolds, Alpine Mountain Guide From England

Louisa has guided clients up the Matterhorn four times already.  A petite Englishwoman with kind eyes and long blond hair, it was not always easy to win her clients’ trust as an alpine mountain guide, even if her skills were as solid as the granite she was climbing ahead of them. This winter, however, she was only going to the foot of the Matterhorn to teach at an avalanche safety course. She did not want to keep guiding up the higher mountains. The Alpine huts’ toilets’ stench made her morning sickness worse during her first trimester. Her lungs had been giving her trouble ever since she developed pneumonia the previous year. 

As a mountain guide, she learned to be humble towards nature and to let it guide her to make the best decisions. Her son will know that Mum did not give up on her passion for the mountains for him; that first, she had to keep them both healthy. That after he arrives, she will start her journey back to fitness once more, as long and slow as it may be. Climbing has always required her patience and determination. For now, she was looking to do some easy sport and ice climbing with experienced friends. Lou thought it funny that she did not know Beccs well before they both got pregnant, even though they were both based in Chamonix for years. She liked Beccs’s clear enthusiasm for the mountains. Lou wished her passion for the outdoors was untroubled by memories of all the friends injured or lost in accidents in the mountains. Her husband is a mountain guide too. She had the three of them to think about now. She knows well that mountains don’t care about love.

Caroline George, Alpine Mountain Guide and Professional Athlete from the US/Switzerland

Caroline’s story is one of love. An immeasurable love for the mountains. She met her future husband, Adam, a mountain guide, while ice climbing. She loved the mountains still after they broke her heart and took him away from her in a fatal accident. Caroline is an experienced alpine mountain guide, one of the best female ice climbers out there, and a mum. Caroline had been defying harsh conditions and people’s judgment for years. She learned how to balance her alpinism with keeping herself and her family safe and happy. She didn’t expect it to be Adam who would disappear so suddenly in a helicopter crash while guiding clients in Switzerland. Suddenly, it was just her and her daughter Olivia who had been up there with her right from the start.

“I was able to skitour until four pm. Olivia was born that midnight +15 min.

I wanted nothing more than to be a mum when I got pregnant. Much like guiding, I wanted to do that, and the only painful part was people’s entitlement to judge me in that identity.

I felt very vulnerable to let my clients know that I was pregnant. It felt like jumping off a cliff without a parachute to catch me in my freefall. Now, I can see that I was so attached to that identity and feared losing it.  It has less power over me now.

I kept being in the mountains. But I needed to be free to decide when and if I was going to be up there. On my own terms. I feel a lot like that now, in this new stage of life as the sole parent to my child. And that means that I only guide clients who can understand that.

It’s important to understand that being a parent will be linked to your identity unconditionally and forever. Stay true to yourself. Know what nurtures you. Have a good, caring system for your child so you have some freedom. School is a good daycare, but also a jail for the lifestyle that outdoor people have. Take the kids with you everywhere from the start so that becomes your method of functioning and you are less frustrated. Everyone is different, but what works for you is what works for you. Don’t let anyone judge you for it.

Things are moving forward, things are becoming easier for the next generations. But also, all that work put toward normalising this can be taken away with judgment and power. In Chamonix, the support is immense because most mums are there for the outdoors and some passion. To be in a place where you have like-minded parents is key.”

Martina Čufar, Climbing Champion from Slovenia

Martina is one more of those like-minded parents based in Chamonix.

“Before I had kids, I saw a video of a pregnant woman climbing with her huge belly. I thought to myself – oh this looks strange – I was sure I wouldn’t do that. It did not look comfortable. Then I was pregnant myself, and I felt fine climbing. During my first pregnancy, I still had some doubts in my mind, but by the second, I knew what to expect. It would have felt unnatural for me to stop. I climbed till the end of both of my pregnancies. In fact, in both, I was very nauseous. I felt so sick I could not eat anything. My favourite chocolate stayed in the cupboard for nine months. I lost a lot of weight. The only thing that made me feel hungry was climbing. I would forget the sickness and was able to finally eat something.

Seeing how well things went, my ego started dictating the rhythm, but it left me feeling unhappy. After I had Tommy and Pako, I wanted to get back to climbing hard as quickly as possible. I got obsessed. I’d be playing with them at home, but kept absent-mindedly making climbing plans on my phone. Today, I listen to my body and heart instead. I don’t want to forget my family to climb that one grade harder.

To have kids at the crag, well, that depends. If the kids are motivated to climb too, then that is cool. But if they are just sitting there and waiting to go home, then it is a bit unfair on them too. I don’t force my kids to climb. I feel like nowadays everything is a race. I let them get bored. Let them create and feel autonomous. It needs to come from within. Likewise, I try to understand other climbers who don’t have kids. They don’t know what it’s like to be short on time. Some bring dogs to the crag, and there might be people who don’t like that either. It’s just about trying to do our best for each other. Stay open-minded and inclusive so that everyone can have their fun. It is still not easy, especially for men, to know what to do. Their instinct is to protect us. It might not seem normal for them. I can see that it’s starting to be more acceptable, but it takes years.

I also think it is important to keep some time for yourself when you have a family. Doing the things you like. For example, I wake up every day 1.5 hours before my family to practice yoga. After that, they can try to get on my nerves, but it’s ok, I already took care of myself. And if you mastered something like climbing, doing an easier level of it is just a form of self-care, it’s like meditation. It allows me to see my friends too. Then again, when the conditions are just right, I like to be alone at the crags. When there are other people, you feel pressured to get on with things, while some routes demand time. The routes I choose are usually hard and alone, I have all the time to find my way up them. In the spring, I can sit at the top of those cliffs that I climb and, hugged by the warmth of the sun, I observe the returning birds.

I was in Verdon with my family this year. There was such a special moment one day. My husband went climbing with a friend while I went for a hike with the kids, discovering some caves, which was fun, but I was also aware that the conditions were perfect for climbing. I wanted to climb somehow too. I thought, well, the kids like to read, and I have ordered these books for them to our holiday home, but we could not open the mailbox as the keyhole got rusty. After using some tricks, the box opened that very last day of our holiday. So, I left the kids at home with the books; they are old enough now, and I went climbing on my own. I did a lot of rope soloing before, and generally in Verdon it is easy, you fix the rope at the top of the canyon, abseil down on it and then go back up it. There was a nearby crag to us, but this one was different as the anchors could not be reached from the top. So to get the rope up, I had to get creative. I improvised a clipstick with my walking poles and put a rope up step by step. In about two hours, I did this 8a/8a+ all by myself. I did similar climbs before, but this day was just perfect. Nobody to belay me. The kids were happy with their books. I wasn’t bothering anyone.”

Climbing during pregnancy is becoming more heard of. Climbers like Hazel Findlay, Shauna Coxsey, Alex Puccio, and before them, Beth Rodden, have advocated for it in the media. Yet, their voices, however strong, are only just starting to reach the wider public and there is still unwarranted and uninformed backlash against their decisions. The network of support is growing too, but balancing between wanting to be free, happy and in good shape as a parent will never be an easy task and the effort will always be admirable. 

I see Louisa and Rebecca training at the local climbing gym and overhear them planning climbing trips. I follow news of Caroline’s guiding trip in Antarctica with her 12-year-old daughter Olivia in tow. I admire Martina’s posts of her ascents of overhanging rocks while her boys read books in their hammocks hanging off cliffs and trees.  Evidently, there are many ways to be a mother.

Author – Suzana EL Massri
Photography – Aleksandra Janiak
Editing – Jess Inamdar