Majka Burhardt has a passion for creating unusual connections. As a professional climber, social entrepreneur, author, mother of twins, and filmmaker, Majka has spent more than two decades leading multi-stage international ventures focused on current issues of cultural and environmental significance spanning Africa, Europe, South and North America.
Majka is the Founder and Executive Director of Legado, an international organization where she works to help secure Thriving Futures for both people and the wild places they call home. Legado originated in 2011 during a pioneering climbing and conservation research expedition to Mozambique and is supported today by some of the world’s most influential conservation funders and decision-makers.
Majka is the author of Coffee Story: Ethiopia and Vertical Ethiopia: Climbing Toward Possibility in the Horn of Africa and Executive Producer of films Waypoint Namibia and Namuli. Wonder how this all comes together? Read her full bio here. Curious how to say her name? It’s “My-ka.”
More: Life at the Edge of
Adventure and Motherhood
Forthcoming in Spring 2023 – Pegasus Books
Pre-Order NowMore: Life at the Edge of Adventure and Motherhood
By Majka Burhardt
An intense and emotional epistolary memoir by one of the world’s top ice climbers, born at the confluence of motherhood, adventure, career, and marriage.
Raw, candid, and galvanizing, More is a passionate and poignant testament to the enduring power of love and our lifelong journey to understand ourselves as we strive to always pursue more.
“As a professional rock climber and mother, I can certainly relate to Majka’s thoughts and feelings about balancing motherhood with her relationships, marriage, work, and her passion for climbing. Her writings not only made me laugh out loud, but I was impressed by her willingness to share her most vulnerable inner thoughts and fears as a mother during this critical time of political, social, and environmental turmoil. This series of letters to her twins throughout pregnancy and their first four-and-a-half years of life, offer an insightful perspective about how the intense love for our children, can enable us to do what’s best in the face of all the challenges of life and the sometimes messiness of motherhood.”
– Lynn Hill, climbing luminary
Pre-Order Now
Forthcoming in Spring 2023 – Pegasus Books
LEGADO
Majka’s work helping secure Thriving Futures for both people and the wild places they call home via the international organization she founded and directs.
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Speaking Reel
Impact, inspiration and passion from overtwo decades of personal experience on change leadership, teamwork, intuition, and global capacity.
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NEW PRESS
How to vote for our lands, our mountains, and our future. An Op Ed in the New Hampshire Union Leader
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Learn about Legado
Majka is the Founder & Executive Director of Legado —
an international organization that pursues Thriving Futures
for people and the places they call home.
Learn More
Photos: Bernd Zewgswetter, James Q Martin, Travis Horn