Photo: On the podium with a silver medal in the distance time trial, 2021 Minnesota Senior games I feel the adrenalin surging as the timing judge counts down the seconds: three, two, and one. The starter judge drops her hand. I stand on one pedal, push off, clip in the other foot. Gaining speed, I […]
Featured photo: Buck Mountain in winter. Credit Jinrui Qu I step out of the pine forest into the meadow, touched by the first light of a new day. After three days of heavy rain, the air smells cool and clean. On a ridge marking the far side of the meadow, the silhouette of two elk. […]
Photo: Gary on the summit of the Grand Teton 13,775 feet, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Photo credit: Gary Christensen collection. Sweat rolls down our foreheads and into our eyes. The steep, rocky trail offers no relief from the mid-day sun; not a breath of wind, 92 degrees and humid. Reaching the top of the […]
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 […]