Photo: Pingora, Wind River Range, Wyoming. The 1200 foot Northeast Face route, one of the Fifty Classic Climbs of North America, ascends the middle of the face. Awaking from a fitful sleep, I check the time, 1:30 am. Wake up alarm coming in 90 minutes. It is mid-August 2009 in the Cirque of the Towers, […]
Photo: Steve and Charlie Markusen on the summit of the Grand Teton, Wyoming. From August 2019, fifty years after Steve first climbed the Grand with his dad Dave Markusen in 1969. “I just get up every day and don’t let the old man in.” Clint Eastwood Aging is like rust—it never sleeps. As we […]
ADELAIDE LITERARY AWARD ANTHOLOGY 2020 Steven Markusen Julian “Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.” —Pema Chodron, The Pocket Pema Chodron Julian sits across from me in a Spartan classroom in the education department of the Duluth Federal Prison Camp. A bundle of barely restrained kinetic […]
ADELAIDE LITERARY AWARD ANTHOLOGY 2020 Steven Markusen The Warrior “This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the […]
Photo: Doing what I love to do at age 65. Deep in the Escalante Grand Staircase wilderness, Utah; on a eight day, eighty mile off-trail through hike. May 2019. Photo Credit Paul Gardner In my previous What I Learned newsletter, https://crooked-thumb.com/2021/04/07/interval-training-live-longer-live-healthier/ I defined interval training, how it works and the benefits of incorporating interval training […]
Photo: Steve taking the inside line to a third place podium finish at the 2008 Hopkins Raspberry Criterium. Like the namesake chariot races from Roman times, riding the fine line between control and mayhem. Interval training is not just for competitive athletes. A number of years ago I took on a client in his early […]
The ski track ended at tree line, the top of a three thousand vertical foot backcountry ski run called Mavericks at ten thousand feet elevation on the east flank of Buck Mountain, in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. I started breaking my own trail, but quickly gave up. Strong winds were transporting thirty inches of […]
Photo: Steve skiing untracked powder on Mavericks, a 3000 foot vertical backcountry ski run in Grand Teton National Park, January 30, 2021. Credit: Jack Henley Why is it so hard to lose weight? This is the subject of my previous What I learned newsletter article, https://crooked-thumb.com/2021/01/19/body-set-weight-why-its-so-hard-to-lose-weight/. As I wrote in that article, the brain sets […]
Photo: Steve ice climbing at Sandstone, MN, January 2021 I had the privilege last week of ice climbing with my twenty three year-old son Charlie. It felt good. I am sixty six years old, but good nutrition, exercise, and a goal of younger every year is working. I can still do well all the activities […]
Photo: Steve Markusen on Triple Direct, Teton Pass, WY, 2019. Photo Credit: Max Markusen I peel the climbing skins off my skis, reset the bindings to downhill mode, don hat, gloves and goggles. I am alone at the top of Edelweiss Bowl, just south of Teton Pass, Wyoming. My son Charlie left two days earlier […]