Osprey Athletes: Majka Burhardt
Majka Burhardt
Osprey Sponsored Athlete and Climber
Favorite Packs: Variant Series
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It’s always best to start with the name. Technically, it’s “My-ka,” sometimes it’s Maj, and if you want to traumatize her, it’s Mike. But watch out, because when Majka was growing up, she recorded each time her sister caller her Mike in a pink-sequined notebook and turned it into their parents for a weekly older-sister trauma report. Add to this being a kid who hyperventilated over papercuts, cried over indigestion, and refused to go to bed without a tiara, sprinkle in the “Toughen-Up-Majka-Campaign” (a little bit of ingenuity on her father’s part) and the result is a woman who became a mountain guide at age nineteen and hasn’t looked back since.
These days Majka is a writer, climber, and AMGA-Certified Rock Guide who lives in Boulder, Colorado…when she’s home. Lately she’s been spending a lot of time searching for stone in Africa. In 2007, she established first ascents on sandstone towers in Ethiopia, and came home and wrote a book about it: Vertical Ethiopia: Climbing Toward Possibility in the Horn of Africa. A return trip landed her in Namibia, where she, Peter Doucette, and Kate Rutherford climbed a new route up the granite walls of Namibia’s highest peak, The Brandenburg. Waypoint Namibia, the film, followed. In addition to her focus on Africa’s rock walls, Majka spent three years exploring its cultural coffee roots, resulting in her second book: Coffee Story: Ethiopia.
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Talk to Majka for five minutes and you will likely know two things: she is intense, and has a poodle. What you might never learn is that she always goes to bed at 9:30, when she’s not out dancing until 2am. She’s built a strawbale house, made three-tier wedding cakes, installed a septic system, worked as an EMT in Trenton, NJ, and has never run but only jogged. In fifth grade she got the award for the most checking penalties in the Minnesota floor hockey league — the boys one.
Majka’s a self-proclaimed mental tooth-wiggler—that place where it hurts and feels good—and goes there often in her writing and her climbing. When not in Africa, she’s swinging ice tools, climbing long alpine rock routes, guiding, and being the mother to the poodle (who has no foofy weird hair-do, so get that picture out of your mind). Majka has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers and received her BA in Anthropology from Princeton University. She speaks often about the merger of adventure, ambition, culture, and perception and brings a lifetime of inquisitive travel to her projects.
Majka’s an alumnus of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and Outward Bound, and credits the two organizations with convincing her to pursue a life outside. She was a ski racer as a child and hopes to be one again. When she’s seventy she’d like to finally have the guts to ride her bike without holding onto the handlebars, in Italy, between villas with great wine.
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Recommended Websites
www.majkaburhardt.com
The Liminal Line Blog (http://www.majkaburhardt.com/liminal-line-blog/)
Waypoint Namibia Movie (http://www.majkaburhardt.com/waypoint-namibia/)
Coffee Story: Ethiopia The Book (http://www.majkaburhardt.com/coffee-story-ethiopia/)
Vertical Ethiopia (http://www.majkaburhardt.com/vertical-ethiopia-primary/)
Watch Majka give a TEDx talk:
See the 7 minute version Waypoint Namibia Short here (Coming Soon).
Read Majka on the Osprey Blog
blog.ospreypacks.com
blog.ospreypacks.com
