Maureen "Mo" Beck wants you to pay attention to the fact that she's a badass, world-champion climber — not that she does it without a left hand.
Beck, who lives outside Denver in Arvada, looks up at near-sheer rockfaces and sees puzzles to be solved and climbs to celebrate with Oreos and beer. What she doesn't see is why people should find her climbing particularly exceptional or inspiring.
In fact, Beck tells Colorado Matters she's been trying to defy people's limited expectations for as long as she can remember. When she played soccer in school it was as goalie. She even thought about trying out for the basketball team. "No one was telling me I couldn't do anything — but I'd look at it and think 'people probably think I can't do it.' And then I wanted to do it."
The new film "Stumped" chronicles Beck's months-long quest to do a 5.12 climb called Days of Future Passed in Boulder Canyon. It plays in Denver as part of the Reel Rock 12 film festival.
