Hazel Findlay

Hazel Findlay Professional climber, founder of Strong Mind Ltd, mindset, fear-management and flow coach.

This summer has been pure magic. North Wales is one of the best places to spend a summer and it’s been even more fun wit...
17/08/2026

This summer has been pure magic. North Wales is one of the best places to spend a summer and it’s been even more fun with a toddler in tow.

But the past few weeks have also been super tough. For 18 months I’ve been co-sleeping and feeding Aliette through the night. I’ve been getting just enough sleep to cope, but not enough for the situation to feel sustainable. So recently we decided to try night weaning her and, honestly, it’s been such a battle.

Who would have guessed we’d produce such a strong-willed child 😂 She really knows what she wants and fights for it, and while I’m sure that quality will serve her well in life, right now it’s properly exhausting!

Hopefully we turn a corner soon. In the meantime, very grateful for this beautiful summer and all the good bits amongst the tiredness.

14/08/2026

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29/07/2026

The Magnetron is BACK! If this thing isn’t an example of perfect engineering, I don’t know what is.

Head to for info on how to order—they’re going to sell out fast.

Beyond psyched to have climbed Yma O Hyd (E10/5.14 trad) on Monday second go of the day in perfect conditions despite th...
15/07/2026

Beyond psyched to have climbed Yma O Hyd (E10/5.14 trad) on Monday second go of the day in perfect conditions despite the heat wave.

Motherhood has expanded my mental and physical capacity beyond what I imagined. A couple of years ago I never would have believed I could climb a route like this while still breastfeeding through the night and functioning on broken sleep for well over a year.

Setting ambitious goals and achieving them is one thing. What’s become much more important to me is my relationship with that process.

It’s taken me a lot of years to learn how to care deeply about a goal without letting it consume me. I still want it badly, but I don’t want the process to make me a worse partner, mum or person.

For it all to make sense, I’m at the point where I want the process to make me feel bigger, rather than spending months feeling small until I send. And that’s not easy. It takes practice. And that practice has become just as important to me as the climb itself.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a cost. This project nudged me towards the edge of what felt sustainable. Not over it, but close enough that I had to pay attention. There were days when I wished I’d had more time with Aliette, days when I was carrying niggling injuries or running solely on strong tea. Those costs reminded me that how I approach a goal matters just as much as the goal itself.

I definitely couldn’t have done this without Angus’s support. It was also a pleasure to share the experience with a bunch of friends—especially James, who climbed it on the same day, and young gun Tom Pearce, who floated it.

📸 .daz ._pierce

10/07/2026

A few moments from the project. Such a unique climb! I’ve been away recently for some family time, but I’m very psyched to get back on it soon.

Thanks .daz for the clip!

So far this summer I’ve been pretty engrossed in a project called Yma O Hyd. It’s a brilliant route: hard, pumpy, and sa...
24/06/2026

So far this summer I’ve been pretty engrossed in a project called Yma O Hyd. It’s a brilliant route: hard, pumpy, and safe by trad standards.

Unfortunately, the Welsh summer has been doing its thing. Between the rain and heatwaves, getting up there consistently has been a challenge.

One mindset habit I come back to on climbs like this is reminding myself: I picked this climb 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 it’s hard.

We choose ambitious goals and then somehow end up frustrated when they refuse to come together easily. The practice is to keep returning to the struggle rather than resisting it. To remember that the difficulty isn’t getting in the way of the goal. It 𝘪𝘴 the goal, the experience I came for, and the whole point.

On a route like this, where the rock can stay wet for days after rain, the conditions are part of the challenge too. The practice is accepting that rather than fighting it. The challenge is not just to climb the route. It’s staying open to the process when it refuses to happen on your timeline.

This photo is from 2021 when I climbed Mission Impossible. Yma O Hyd takes a direct start through the same wall, making for a harder line and giving me a good excuse to spend more time up there with friends on one of our best local crags.

Photo from 🙏

Bouldering and bilberry hunting in our backyard😊 It’s fun coming back to the same places and seeing how things have chan...
17/06/2026

Bouldering and bilberry hunting in our backyard😊

It’s fun coming back to the same places and seeing how things have changed — Aliette finding new ways to play in nature, and .kille somehow getting even stronger 💪 😳

I’ve been breastfeeding for 19 months, and it’s one of the more psychologically complex things I’ve done. Most of the ti...
19/05/2026

I’ve been breastfeeding for 19 months, and it’s one of the more psychologically complex things I’ve done. Most of the time, it feels so obviously right for both of us, and I’m so glad I pushed through the difficult phases early on to get here. Breastfeeding has changed as she’s changed — at different points it’s been food, drink, comfort, regulation, bonding and sleep. And it something I get a lot out of too.

But there are other moments where I feel the cost of it. I’m still feeding her at least 3 times a night. Then there’s the constant energy demand, the feeling that my body is still not quite my own, and feeling touched-out — especially now she loves to pinch my other ni**le in a really irritating way 🤬 In those moments, I catch myself planning an exit strategy.

So far, motherhood has confronted me again and again with experiences that resist clean narratives. I want to say that breastfeeding has been “incredible” or “magical”, but mostly it’s been very worthwhile with a shifting set of trade-offs, and a constant recalibration between my own needs and my child’s.

Breastfeeding feels strangely under-discussed, given both its obvious benefits and how physically and psychologically consuming it can be. It’s very “normal”, but also kind of invisible. Valued, yet poorly supported and massively under-researched. We know surprisingly little about the physiological effects of prolonged breastfeeding on female athletes. I still don’t have my normal cycle back, or my normal body composition, so it’s clearly still having a significant effect on my physiology.

Who knows how long I’ll keep it up. But for now I think the experience is still net positive for both of us — well, especially her 😂 — and somehow that’s always the most important thing, until it really can’t be.

Scroll for some stats/context on breastfeeding. Photo from .kille

There are many things you could teach someone to help them improve at climbing — technique, training tips, the hard skil...
12/05/2026

There are many things you could teach someone to help them improve at climbing — technique, training tips, the hard skills of rope work. But nothing is more interesting or impactful, to me, than helping climbers find the right psychological space.

If someone is present and not overwhelmed by fear or distraction, learning tends to happen naturally. Most coaching focuses on what you do. We’re more interested in the state you’re in when you do it.

We just finished putting this into practice with a brilliant group in Mallorca — rope climbing and DWS. It was a blast. Here are some photos (all DWS just because it’s so pretty and the vibe was 🤩).

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