Majka Burhardt

Majka Burhardt

Majka is currently touring North America for her Scarpa-sponsored Vertical Ethiopia Slideshow. She's likely speaking at a city near you soon. Check Here for her schedule: http://www.majkaburhardt.com/event-schedule/

First off, get the name straight. It's My-ka, but if you want to give her a hard time it's Madge, or Maj, or, in the case of her 5th grade floor hockey coach, Ma-jock-ka. The real name is Polish, and Majka attributes most of her defiant personality to growing up with a hidden "J" and frizzy hair.
Majka's first foray into rock climbing came when she was six years old as a byproduct of an obsession with cotton candy and fudge. Her local camp had adventure day at Taylor's Falls, MN, and Majka agreed to tie in a rope and get vertical in exchange for all the sweats she can eat. Today she still searches the globe for the perfect combination of sugar and rock, and recently found that Ethiopia was not the best place for the merging of the two.
    Majka grew up a paddler in northern MN and Canada and was a nationally ranked skier at age 12. She started mountaineering with a NOLS course at 15 (which she talked her way into as the minimum age requirement was 18 at the time). Always sassy and willing to try and convince people to let her do more than they thought they should, Majka started working for Outward Bound at 18--their youngest hire at the time. Majka began guiding shortly after that in the North Cascades and went on to work in Ecuador and Alaska all before graduating from Princeton University in 1999. Majka has an undergraduate degree in anthropology and recently completed her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in 2007.
    Majka describes her climbing career as a series of good decisions punctuated by bad injuries and good fortune. On and off the couch for the past 12 years, in her early climbing days she received AAC climbing grants, soloed Imje Tse in Nepal, racked up Valley free climbs, hard Colorado ice leads, and tromped around climbing and guiding in Bolivia, Nepal, Mexico and the US. After a forced break from a car accident--during which time she general contracted the building of her strawbale house: designing the septic system, laying the bales, stuccoing, laying the floor, and learning why metal and electrical wire really should only be combined by a licensed electrician--she turned back to climbing and began focusing on the world of rock.
    Majka also works as a writer and has climbed and written about numerous places including Corsica, Poland, Ethiopia, and Argentina. Her column "Whipped," for Climbing Magazine, describes the underbelly of the vertical world, including what it's like to split up climbing gear with an ex-husband, go from shoulder surgery to new routes in Ethiopia, and get petrified by attack pigeons in the dark. Majka's first book, Vertical Ethiopia: Climbing Towards Possibility in the Horn of Africa, is coming out in January of 2008 with Shama Publishing. The coffee table book chronicles her teams' discovery of northern Ethiopia as a place of adventure and opportunity.  Part culture, part climbing, the book represents the way Majka tries to see and understand the world--as a place where climbing is possible, but can never be everything.
     Majka has been guiding since 1999 and in 2003 was the 4th woman in the US to become AMGA certified in any discipline. She is currently a certified Rock Guide. AN extrovert from the get go, her clients often walk away from their time with Majka feeling like they have talked just as much as climbed. Before guiding, Majka had a brief stint as a bagel baker and debated the merits of becoming a telephone psychic. Realizing she could barely predict her own life, let alone the lives of others, she turned to writing instead.
    Currently alternating between living in Boulder or her van somewhere in the US, Majka is still trying to learn how to layback and figure out just why she is happier run out above a micro-nut than a two-feet above a bomber bolt. One day she hopes to be a surfer and pastry chef. For now, she's the mother of a standard poodle and owns a freakishly geeky recumbent bike to which she refuses to affix an orange flag.

Check out more and read Majka's articles at: www.majkaburhardt.com
Find out more about Majka's book at: www.verticalethiopia.com

Special thanks to Gabe Rogel-www.rogelphoto.com, and James Q. Martin- www.jamesqmartin.com