Alaskan Lessons of Honest Skiing

Peter Doucette heads up to get a down. Photo by Majka BurhardtFourteen years is thirteen too many to go between visits to Alaska. I sensed that every year that passed during my recent Alaska pause, but I knew it when I saw the landscape of mountains, pure mountains, and more mountains on the clear, still day I made it back this April. 

How did you know you wanted to be a climber? When did you know the mountains had to be part of your life?  People ask me these questions all the time. Bottle Alaska and you will have the answer.

This April I was there backcountry skiing on the Kenai Peninsula between tides on the Turnagain Arm. The last time I’d skied in Alaska it was on nicked-over Mountain Noodles with my plastic Scarpa Invernos heading down the NE fork of the Kahiltna from an aborted climbing attempt on Mt. Hunter’s Moonflower Buttress. This time I had two pairs of powder skis and no objective other than turns. Or rather that, and holding my own with my in-laws-to-be.

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Post Post

Kate Rutherford and Majka Burhardt, Red Rocks 2012It’s always hard to write about rock climbing when you are ripping powder in a new bowl, or to write about skiing when you are latticing hand jams up granite. This year, I put myself on spring break to do both activities, type about neither, and then come home to the poodle and the computer.

I’ve spent countless season shifts in Red Rocks. For the past fifteen years it’s been the place to either jump-start or wrap up the year’s era of rock climbing. Spring has always been my favorite time. It’s when the green grass pokes through the sandy soil and softens the desert for the moment before you The Osprey Packs Intro Rock Climbing Course at the Red Rock Rendezvousstep on a barrel cactus. Spring is when the edges hurt your fingers because you’ve let them grow soft in your ice climbing gloves, when last year’s warm up is the biggest send of the current day, and when the sun feels exactly like thing you’ve been pining for all winter long.

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So That’s What You Mean By Fat

Turn Madness in the Adamants, BCAn Additive Adventure Entry In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

...The secret to being a great athlete is having a list of excuses always at the ready, but never using them. I had plenty of excuses built up by the time I got to the bottom of the day’s fist run: I grew up in Minnesota, powder made no sense, my father was Polish… I didn’t want to use them. Really. But when I got to the bottom and saw everyone else smiling and laughing and talking about how good it was, I had no choice but to be honest. Cindy asked me first. “How are the new skis?” Her smile was so big and expectant it broke my heart. But I had to tell the truth....

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Trifecta, An Additive Adventure Entry

Majka Burhardt Ice Climbing, 1996 season, age 20. Ready for a seson switch? In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

I am a grudging participant in the multi-sport revolution. I live in Boulder, and my opposition is thus poorly chosen. Boulderites switch deftly between a morning ski, an afternoon mountain bike, and an evening climb of the flatiron by headlamp. Over the past six years of living here I have learned that I am good for a two-fer, but that the trifecta continues to elude me. It’s therefore time for new rules.

1: Rollerblading is a sport.

2. Hula hooping counts.

Work with me. Wait—hold on. I just hula hooped. It’s 7 am and I’ve already got one sport down.... 

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Holiday Break for the Unbreakables

It has been over three years since I spend more than three days without doing something productive or additive. These days, if I climb for more than two days in a row without checking my email I start to grind my teeth. Or rather, with current technology, it is more like 6 hours without a quick run through my phone. This might come from obsessive behavior, or the need to feel important via a sense of being busy. But I think it has deeper roots in self-reliance. This weekend, driving to catch the 2 feet of fresh at Wildcat Mountain, on day four of dereliction, I realized I could just keep going....

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