About Elyn Lytton
Elyn Lytton is a 68-year-old climber from Colorado who started climbing in her early 50’s and is still regularly crushing 5.12’s (indoors and on toprope). She is also my mother-in-law and I’m constantly impressed by her. She’s a really good example of a person who does things in the name of sustainability, meaning, she LOVES climbing and will do whatever it takes to be able to do it for many more years.
In this conversation, we discuss her approach to climbing and what she does to make it work for her body (with the aches and pains that come with age). We also talk about how she started lifting heavy weights in the past couple years in order to improve her bone density, and how that’s working out for her.
Elyn has had setbacks with chronic migraines and arthritis/hand pain in the past, and we talk about how she’s tackled those things successfully through diet so that she can climb several days a week pretty much as hard as she wants now.
Something that’s always struck me about Elyn is her ability to bend “norms” and just do what’s right for her. For example, she only top ropes and she never climbs outside. She doesn’t have any desire to do either of those things, but she loves climbing and gets a great workout all the same, and she encourages her climbing partners to take care of themselves in the way that she does, too. We talk about how people put pressure on each other (and themselves) to do more, more, more with climbing, but how sometimes that’s not best for everyone for physical and mental reasons.
I’ve gotten a lot of requests recently for interviews with older climbers, so I hope this is helpful to hear how Elyn makes climbing work for herself. But even if you are still a very young climber, there’s something to be learned from her wisdom.
Elyn Lytton Interview Details
- Why she started climbing in her fifties
- How she fit climbing into her schedule with a demanding job before she retired
- How she deals with osteoarthritis in her fingers
- How she cured chronic migraines
- How her diet helps her climb hard and recover well
- How lifting heavy weights helped her osteoporosis and her climbing
- How climbing has changed her life for the better
Photo
Family selfie! From left to right: Neely Quinn, Seth Lytton, Elyn Lytton on top of a lighthouse in Florida
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Not quite sure how to download this one. Some podcasts I can download, this one doesn’t appear to have a download button. I usually download these to my phone, then listen on the road where I don’t have an internet connection.
Marek – I’m so sorry about that! I fixed it so you can download it now.
Awesome. Thank you much! I wasn’t sure if I was doing something wrong, as is often the case.
Thank you, Elyn and Neely for highlighting an older female crusher! I relate to so much, starting 4 years ago at 48 b/c my kids were on climbing team. Avoiding injury so I can keep climbing 3-4X a week is paramount, so I too have no shame about being a top rope hero and not chasing grades. I workout too much and ache much of the time, so hearing Elyn talk about being able to get three burns in on a 12 at 68 was a wake-up call to rest and recover more. I will drop nuts and seeds as a last resort, but thanks for that tip!
Can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this! I also started climbing in my 50s with my son (there are a few of us out there) and it was SO INSPIRING to hear from someone 10 years older than me hitting such strong grades and problem-solving her health and managing her climbing practice so well. Looking forward to hearing from the other older women.
PS I was in a gym in N.Wales a few years back and was chatting with a group of climbers who were in their eighties and climb at the gym twice every week. They told me that they were the young eighties group, they said the old eighties group comes in on Monday and Wednesday : )
Wonderful stuff! Thanks for this and thank Elyn for sharing her climbing story.
Steve Downes,
Salt Lake City