Majka Burhardt
Photo Credit: Gabe Rogel

Climbing is what sparked Majka Burhardt’s interest in Ethiopia but it’s the coffee that’s bringing her back.

A writer, climber, and guide, Burhardt first travelled to Ethiopia to research the country’s coffee industry, where she discovered instead a climber’s paradise. This mission resulted in her first book, Vertical Ethiopia: Climbing Toward Possibility in the Horn of Africa which was entered into the Banff Mountain Book Festival competition – and subsequently led to her coming to Banff as a guest speaker for the 2008 Banff Mountain Book Festival.  She also participated in the 2008 Banff Mountain Writing Program, held during the festival.

Burhardt’s non-fiction writing combines her background in anthropology with her passion for adventure – she’s been published in Patagonia, Women’s Adventure, The Explorers’s Journal, and Climbing magazines. A certified climbing guide since 1998, Burhardt was the fourth woman in the United States to become certified by the American Mountain Guides Association.  She now specializes in guiding multi-pitch rock climbing and technical ice climbing, and has guided expeditions in Ecuador, Bolivia, Mexico, Nepal, and Alaska.

Prior to entering her book and speaking at the festival, Burhardt was not familiar with the Banff Mountain Grant program. Festivals Director, Shannon O’Donoghue mentioned the grants program, which prompted her to apply. Burhardt’s grant-winning project, entitled The Damara Sequence, will create a film and a series of articles about Namibia’s Himba tribe and the mountainous landscape they inhabit in the Damaraland region, as explored by climbers and anthropologists.

“I like to say that climbers, at their essence, like to get dirty. They get close. They connect with the land and commit to landscape in a way that is understood by people who have to do the same to create a life,” says Burhardt, of her upcoming climbing trip to Africa. “Namibia is one of the only countries in the world to have conservation mandated as part of its constitution. It also has some of the best roads in Africa, one of its most stable governments, and a geographic pre-disposition to granite. Add in the Himba-seen as the last great southern African Pastoral tribe, and you have The Damara Sequence.”

Burhardt will be departing on May 1, 2009 for the five-week expedition. About her trip, she says, “the photographer Gabe Rogel, and videographer Chris Alstrin (who happens to be a 2006 Banff Mountain Grant winner and past film festival entrant) are ecstatic about the recent heavy rains which will allow them to film some of the greenest terrain the desert country has had in over fifty years.”

Leveraging grant dollars with other sources of funding is often how recipients are able to be involved with larger projects.  “The Banff grant was the first funding support we received for our project and thus it signaled, to us, a commitment and interest from the industry, and to other potential funding groups it provided the gateway to support”, says Burhardt.” I was able to use the commitment from Banff as reason to fully pursue this project.” Other sources of funding for The Damara Sequence project include a Polartec Challenge Grant, as well as in-kind support from Patagonia, Osprey, Outdoor Research, Clif Bar, Scarpa, and Petzl.

Burhardt is not sure if The Damara Sequence will be ready in time to enter the film into the 2009 Banff Mountain Film Festival, but audiences should definitely be looking out for it in 2010.

And what’s next for Burhardt? Along with the film, she is simultaneously working on her next book Coffee: Authentic Ethiopia, a visual and narrative tale of opportunity, resources, education, and  heritage. “For me, it brings my experience in Ethiopia full circle as the first time I went to Ethiopia it was to search for a rare coffee bean-that time I ended up climbing, this time, I’m focusing on the coffee.”

For up-to-date information on Majka Burhardt’s trip to Namibia, visit her blog site:

http://www.majkaburhardt.com/liminal-line-blog/