Photo: Grand Teton summit, Charlie and Steve Markusen, July 2019 Forty feet below the summit of the Grand Teton we paused as a gaggle of Exum guides and clients passed by us on their descent. It was 9:30 in the morning on July 27, 2019. My son Charlie and I had left Petzoldt’s Caves […]
“May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung May you stay forever young…” Bob Dylan My gaze drifted up, taking in the steep rock wall that was the last, and most difficult, of a six pitch rock climb called the Guides Wall in Cascade Canyon, Grand Teton National Park. It […]
Photo: Charlie Markusen on the summit of Pingora, Wind River Range, Wyoming, July 2019 Sitting on a comfortable ledge, 400 feet below the summit of Pingora, I watched with fatherly concern as Charlie climbed the thin 5.8+ crack splitting the vertical wall of granite rock. This crux pitch of the Southeast Buttress is called the […]
Photo: Chillin’ on the summit of the South Teton 12, 519 feet with a view of the Grand Teton, Wyoming, July 2019. I stepped onto the steep snowfield, beginning a traverse to the Northwest Couloir and my goal: the summit of the South Teton. The bright, early morning sun of July 16, 2019 had touched […]
Photo: cloud-base at 8000 feet msl, June 2, 2019 The soaring forecast was marginal, the day…exceptional. My favorite gifts are unexpected. Though receiving such a gift can be uncomfortable. Yesterday’s paragliding flight was unexpected, at times uncomfortable, but most certainly, a gift. The sky was hazy, tainted by smoke from Canadian wildfires in Manitoba. The […]
The names on the map tell stories: Scorpion Gulch, Deadman Ridge, Carcass Canyon, Fifty Mile Cliffs, Rattlesnake Bench and Little Death Hollow. This is the Escalante, three million acres of National Monument and National Recreation Area in Southern Utah. Among the most remote in the country, it was the last to be mapped in the […]
GRAND DESIGN – Non-Fiction by Steve Markusen – Author’s Note: An abbreviated version of this article was published in Rock & Ice in November of 2017. This article has been published on Dreamers website https://www.dreamerswriting.com/stories-poems/exum-ridge/ An insistent voice brought me out of the void and darkness. “What is your name? Where are you?” My eyes […]
“I don’t know what happens when people die Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try” (Jackson Browne, For a Dancer) I was struggling, too much effort and too little output. It was my eighth day on skate skis. Since early February 2019, we had epic Nordic ski conditions. Every week I skied […]
Photo: First tracks on Triple Direct, south of Teton Pass, WY, January 8, 2019. Photo credit Max Markusen. This is the ninth and final installment of my series Deliberate Training: Principles of Periodization. Whether you are alpine climbing, ice climbing or backcountry skiing, mental and physical fitness is your key to enjoying the moment and […]
Photo: Me and my buddies on a March 1978 backcountry ski tour, Sun Valley, Idaho Fitness programming works. There is a formula for success: goal + reality + determination = a positive outcome. You need to have clear goals. Decide what you really want and commit. Prioritize, you can have most anything, but not everything. […]