[The following is an excerpt from a much longer feature story that originally appeared in Alpinist 89 (Spring 2025), which is available in our online store. Only a small fraction of our many long-form stories from the print edition are ever uploaded to Alpinist.com. Be sure to pick up the hard copies of Alpinist for all the goodness!–Ed.]
The world-renowned alpinist and extreme sports athlete died on October 7, 2024, while attempting to climb Jannu East (7460m) in Nepal with Sam Hennessey. Before his fall we had been working together on a profile. The piece has since become a tribute.
In July of 2022, while waiting in the one-room departure lounge at the Sitka airport, I texted a buddy that I’d be climbing the Grand Teton in Wyoming over the next couple of days, at the generous invitation of one of my closest friends. A gentleman by the name of Michael Gardner would be leading our charge.
“Ha!” Dustin English fired back. “No shit. Amazing person and climber. He’s one of the top alpinists in the world right now. He was practically born on the Grand.”
Dustin followed this up with photos of Michael and him leading the Lebanese National Climbing Team up Denali (20,310′); Michael sipping from a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon at base camp; another of him cooking brown rice on a WhisperLite stove, his knobby, outsized hands working pliers over the dented pot.
Walking the jetway, I found an online photo of Michael in the skate park, shirtless, padless, getting crazy air in a concrete bowl with snowy mountain peaks in the background. Straddling Mt. Foraker in the Alaska Range with skis strapped to his back. One more in the Tetons, the Grand silhouetted behind him, pulling rope in a sleeveless pearl-snap denim shirt. Arc’teryx global athlete, professional freeride skier, skateboard ripper—who was this mash-up AI cowboy superhero, blessed with a lion’s mane of spiky cinnamon hair?
Settling into my window seat, I took a swan dive into the rabbit hole, discovering that Michael had set speed records on Denali, completed traverses in the Tetons and first ascents in Nepal and South America. The youngest Exum guide in the company’s history, he was doing laps on the Grand at age eighteen. He trained Navy SEALs and Nepali mountaineers, and led disabled veterans and blind people up Denali.
And now he’d be taking four Gen X fathers up the Grand (13,775′). Snooze.
Just before liftoff I tripped on a mention of George Gardner, Michael’s father, who died on the Grand when Michael was sixteen. A shiver spread over my shoulders as I confirmed the dates: weather permitting, we’d reach high camp on July 19, fourteen years to the day after his father’s fall.
For the first time since receiving Dustin’s enthusiastic text, I set down my phone and looked out the window at our seaside town, tucked in the lee of the snowy mountains. The plane banked hard to the south, flying level with the spine before easing out over the Pacific Ocean, dappled with whitecaps beneath us.
The phone pinged. Dustin sneaked in one last note before we lost service: “If I was going to pick a guide, he’d be #1 on the list. No doubt.”
The following day, black coffees in hand, my three high school buddies and I found our names scrawled on a dry-erase board propped up on a picnic table by the Exum Mountain Guides field office, just inside Grand Teton National Park. A lanky dude standing at one end slipped off his dark shades and gripped our hands, grinning broadly as he met each of us in turn.
“What’s up, guys? We ready to climb?”
Veins ran up his calves like 12/2 Romex wire. His mullet, more autumn hay than cinnamon in the morning sun, fell lazily about his shoulders, spreading over his mouse-grey hoodie. Michael Gardner looked even more impressive in person.
We went around the circle, the four of us shyly introducing ourselves, making weak attempts at jokes. Rob said something about bringing up the rear. Michael smiled and nodded. Alex said he got held back in kindergarten for peeing on the teacher’s leg. Michael matched this by saying he couldn’t read until seventh grade, shocking us all with his vulnerability.
A sun-hardened Clint Eastwood blended with the easy bonhomie of Matthew McConaughey, the dude just exuded good energy and feeling. His eye contact was intimidating. His knees stuck out like two small cantaloupes from his blue shorts.
“Cool, fellas. Let’s talk all things Grand, then get to climbing.”
His voice vibrated with a slight adolescent buzz as he ran us through the schedule: two days of practice on the rocks across Jenny Lake before a gear check, then hike to the Lower Saddle of the Grand—about six hours, depending on our clip, with a gain of about 5,000 feet. If we made good time, he promised, we’d be able to watch the sunset and mess around before racking out early, with the aim of starting in the dark the following morning, summiting and making our descent. This last would be a long day, twelve hours at least. We’d arrive right back here where we stood, tired and hopefully triumphant.
“Should we get into it?” he said, slipping on a purple top-loading pack with twin tattered bronze daisy chains. Complete OG.
At his direction we lined up to take turns filling our water bottles from a vintage green iron hand pump before walking to the boat launch for Jenny Lake. Sun glinted off the waves as Michael bantered with the dock attendants. He had worked here in his teens, catching lines, renting canoes. The place had an East Coast camp feel, except wilder and grander. A bunch of kids had grown up in nearby cabins, he said, pointing south. Running wild in the creekbed while their parents guided. In fact, he told us, he still lived in the same cabin where his family had spent summers.
“Dude, he was a professional skier before climbing,” Jeff whispered to us. “Sponsored and everything.”
Lodgepole pines grew along the banks, waving in the breeze that had blown smoke from the recent Moose Fire in Idaho out of
the valley. The boat cut through the wavelets. All of it—the sun, the mountains, the pine-scented breeze—felt almost too perfect.
When Rob asked what he had been up to lately, Michael said that he had just returned from Spain and Jordan, where he’d been working on the HBO show The Climb, alongside Jason Momoa. Well damn.
That afternoon, after learning to “punch aliens in the face” to make a figure-eight knot, we sat on roots in the shade, just below Hidden Falls, munching peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Offhandedly I asked Michael if he had ever tried Brazilian jujitsu. Never, he said, but he liked to skateboard and surf, and a number of his friends who did the same liked BJJ.
“One day,” he promised. “All right, gentlemen. Let’s get back to work.”
After another sunny day getting comfortable using (and not dropping) ATC devices for rappelling, learning to make landfall in the manner of something other than an epileptic spider, we got the green to climb.
On the morning of July 19, we gathered at the picnic tables for a gear check. I had looked at the weather—there was no version where a low-pressure system would push out this sun. Also, I couldn’t fit a raincoat into my stuffed twenty-five-liter bag.
Michael listened to my inane argument against rain gear—after twenty-five years in the rainforest, I’d welcome getting wet in this hot land. His intense consideration surprised me. He told me how he loved windstorms and thunderstorms and most permutations of the weather. But we needed to satisfy the powers that be. He solved our problem by finding a packable shell.
Annoying client problem solved. Annoying problem client, solved.
Soft blue bellflowers and clusters of violet lupine swayed in the soft breeze as we parked in Lupine Meadows and killed the engine. The bright leaves of aspen and cottonwood trees that gave the wandering creek its name made a shushing sound over the gurgle. The sense of calm in the meadows contrasted with the sharp peaks above.
Michael skidded in on his dirt bike, his mullet coming to rest over his shoulders. Rob asked if he could keep his foil poop bag as a memento of our trip. Michael laughed as he unstrapped his pack, swung it onto his shoulders and started off. We all scrambled to keep pace.
As we walked, calmed by the relatively flat grade, we took turns explaining the hijinks of growing up in Philly in the ’80s, the stupid things we got up to in middle and high school. He told us about Ridgway, Colorado, skateboarding with a group called the Street Ruffians. We knew that an “ollie” was a thing, and that was about the extent of our collective knowledge of skateboarding. He loved the skate park, he said, its simple requirements of shoes and a board, how it steeled you for failure with its constant tumbles. The sport, he believed, had created a foundation for his success in the mountains.
“Dude, he was a professional skier before climbing,” Jeff whispered to us. “Sponsored and everything.”
As the incline steepened, Michael shared with us that his father had died on the Grand. The purple bag had been his. He told us that when he was a kid, he and his family—including his sister, Megan, four years older than him—spent summers in the cabin or in a Coleman tent by the river. As he grew older he helped his father with clients, coiling rope, having breakfast on the practice rocks across Jenny Lake, demonstrating how a young kid could “cruise.”
We all paused as he pointed through the trees at the Grand Teton in the distance. And there beside it, slightly shorter through the branches, Mt. Owen.
“We’ll be up on top tomorrow, fellas.”
After a few switchbacks, gaining 500 feet quickly, we perched on a log in the shade of some willows, each of us taking out ziplock stashes of energy bars and munching like crows on a wire. Michael said that he had eaten enough freeze-dried food for a lifetime, and that the packages dehydrate you.
We glanced between ourselves, fully aware of the expensive freeze-dried scrambled eggs and chicken teriyaki in our packs—but also thankful for the foil-wrapped pork burritos we had brought along.
“I think of it like a fire,” he began, gesturing with his hands. “You start with some paper and small stuff in the morning, just getting things warmed up. Caffeine, the kindling—or maybe tea. Once you’re in motion, you get protein in there for longevity. Add another log, keep the fire humming at a nice even burn. A mix between fast-burning sugar, the kindling, and slow-burning protein, the logs.”
He called this his Yule log philosophy.
I gave my contribution to the conversation, saying that hemlock is considered night wood in the Alaska rainforest. This teed up a nice joke for Rob, and Alex seamlessly transitioned to morning wood. Off in the distance a bird of prey chortled. “Shall we keep moving, boys?” Michael said.
Rob, who wore his neck gaiter around his head, aviator glasses and a cotton hood, a dead ringer for Libyan intelligence, was lagging. Michael doubled back to check in with him, careful not to move too fast, though I could see he wanted to make good time.
“That’s Michael,” Jeff said, pointing at a figure making its way through the rocks at a run, almost a sprint.
The sun reached its peak as we picked our way through the boulderfield in Garnet Canyon. The loose, rocky soil gave way beneath our approach shoes as we came up on a small, hard-running stream. A narrowleaf cottonwood grew along the watercourse, its leaves fluorescent green.
“Guys, it would be a shame not to drink from this spot,” Michael said. We balanced on the rocks and dipped our cupped hands into the cold mountain runoff, ignoring the headaches. I suspect if Michael had said, “It would be a shame if we didn’t jump off this rock into Teton Valley,” we all would have been airborne.
The buttery grasses waved in unison as we broached a meadow covered in alpine forget-me-not, following Michael through the glacial outwash. Blue spruce grew along the flanks of the alpine. Farther up, plants appeared mashed into the hard-packed soil. At a small water source just before the Lower Saddle, I put in an extra lemonade electrolyte packet in preparation for the day ahead.
At high camp a couple of the guides pointed us to a fabric and steel tent with bunks. One named Scotty Palmer shouted over the wind, “Pee toward Idaho!” Indeed, the pit toilets looked west, into the setting sun. In the foreground, sloping ridgelines and swatches of green. Returning from the facilities, we could see, almost due east, the rugged contours of the Wind River Range.
We took our carne asada burritos out of the foil, nestling into a band of rocks to protect ourselves from gusts of wind that continued to blow smoke out of the valley, promising clear views the following day. I checked the time to see how long the climb had taken us. It was just after 5 p.m.
“That’s Michael,” Jeff said, pointing at a figure making its way through the rocks at a run, almost a sprint.
“Wow. I guess he needs more exercise than he was getting with us,” Rob said, chewing.
“Or he’s honoring his dead father, Rob,” Jeff said.
In my eagerness to make it up the mountain and eat this burrito, I had forgotten, whereas Jeff, naturally, had not. The anniversary of George Gardner’s death.
The four of us looked on as Michael shrank into the shape of a boy moving among the boulders. It wasn’t until the light had faded into a purple dusk that he reappeared, picking his way down the face and settling on a rock apart from the other guides. He folded his arms over his knees and set his chin on his wrists. Scotty went over and put an arm across his shoulders. After a minute or two, when Michael didn’t move, he went away, leaving Michael alone.
Following our trip on the Grand, Michael and I would remain in touch.
On September 9, 2022, he sent an email at 8:02 a.m. that changed how I saw this evening on the mountain, along with the following day:
For me death and climbing have been ever-intertwined.
The first climbing gear I ever owned was my inheritance from my late father. The same purple pack he used to put me in as a child when he would ski and climb, I now fill with his gear.
Since his loss and countless others climbing has situated itself as a conflicting life compass.
One place that forever motivates me is the Grand Teton. In many ways this is where it all began. As a young child I would sit swaddled in an oversized jacket around a campfire in Lupine meadows in the shadow of the Grand. And listen as larger than life characters (Rolo, Dave Carman, Alex Lowe, Chuck Pratt, Evelyn Lees, Michael Ruth, Kim Schmitz, etc.) shared their exploits on the mountain. It was the first mountain I climbed, it was the last one my father ever touched.
As I grew as a climber and man, I returned annually to its flanks to honor my father. Often on the anniversary of his passing I would sit at the place where he landed lifeless. My eyes would drift upward wondering about his motivations to climb and why at 58 he was still compelled to free-solo alpine routes with the regularity that others reserved for coffee or afternoon strolls.
After prolonged periods of contemplation I would head over to the Direct Durrance route (the route he fell from). One year while sitting at his spot a kernel of motivation began to form. I wanted to climb a direct line straight up from where we found him.
Over the course of two years and two amazing partners, we did just that. We established Wooden Ships, a nod to my fathers [sic] favorite [Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young] song.
For several years the contentment of climbing as a memorial to his memory lasted.
In the morning on the Lower Saddle, we roused in the starlit dark, filling our summit packs with bars and nuts. Congregating outside, we hopped up and down in the cold, coaxing blood into our legs, stiff from the day before.
Along with Scotty, another guide named Gavin teamed up with Alex and Rob, while Michael broke off with Jeff and me. After a straightforward pitch, he directed us to an alcove in the rocks.
“Fellas, this is the part where we either split off and do the Exum—it’s 5.7, you guys could handle it—or we do the Owen–Spalding—totally your call.”
Neither Jeff nor I responded. He searched our eyes, smiling easily, picking up that we wanted to stick near Alex and Rob, and also just get to the summit and call it good.
“Don’t worry, I can give you something extra,” he said. “Spice it up. Let’s get up there!”
As rays of sun broke loose over the clear Teton Valley, Michael led us along the Belly Roll, followed by the Crawl, exposed sections of the climb that made the left side of my body tingle. Michael grinned at our reactions to the sheer rock, both patient and excited as we made our way up.
One by one we crawled up the Double Chimney, Michael talking about how in winter the pitch is choked with snow and ice. After the Owen Chimney, true to his word, Michael led us to a sheer wall of granite, instructing us on where to find holds. At the top, a long dorsal fin of rock called the Horse led to the summit.
“Not yet, boys!”
Impervious to the cold wind, he took off his windbreaker and slipped on a denim pearl-snap shirt with the sleeves ripped off. In the rising sun his hair glowed as he led us to the summit, where Rob and Alex waited. We rubbed the bronze USGS benchmark and did our happy dance, each of us taking a moment to hold our phones high as we video-called our wives and children.
Following a series of rappels, and a quick snack at the Lower Saddle, we gathered the rest of our gear and made our way down the sunblasted glacial valley.
As we picked our way down, Michael seemed to loosen up, giving in to Scotty’s goofy jokes. I couldn’t tell if it had to do with his father, getting to the other side of July 19, or simply that we had all made it up.
He asked a series of questions about the Tongass, the rainforest where I lived, lamenting that he hadn’t visited southeastern Alaska. I told him about how the American Alpine Club had awarded a grant to a couple of climbers hoping to hike the length of Baranof Island, more than 100 miles long. The pair made it four days, completing about sixty miles, before bailing. Michael laughed at this like it was the funniest thing ever. He told me about his love of Talkeetna and the Alaska Range, and his admiration of Alaskans in general. He regretted not spending more time exploring a state that was over three times the size of Texas, but the climbing season didn’t allow for many breaks.
After a snack pause near Spalding Falls, I was quick off the blocks to beat Alex and take my place just behind Michael. He told me about his cabin in Victor, not unlike the cabin in Lupine Meadows, though nicer. He and his then-girlfriend, Katie, had been living there. She taught nearby. He had a degree in education from Goddard College in Vermont, not far from Sterling College, where his parents had both taught. His parents had helped establish a program sending students from the college to Nepal, for climbing and cultural immersion.
As we chatted I wondered if he didn’t view the four of us, with our respective families, as variations of his own possible future—minus, obviously, the illustrious past of rock-star climber and skier and whatever else.
He said that he had taken a break from climbing after his father died, trying to reorient himself in the world. I offered that my own father had left the family when I was seven. Then I gave my best rendition of William Stafford’s “A Story That Could be True,” which comforted me when things got rough:
… somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.
He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by—
you wonder at their calm.
They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”—
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a king.”
Michael stopped walking and squared himself to me, tasting the words. “ ‘Maybe I’m a king,’ ” he repeated. Then he started on again, grinning as the thought moved through him. “That’s awesome.”
Jeff caught up, and we followed Michael to a stream five or ten feet from the trail.
“This is my knee-saver,” Michael explained. “I do this after each climb.”
The glacial water burned against the skin. In an eddy along the side, I went under, holding my breath—because reaching the summit of the Grand, especially in the presence of my best buddies, felt like a feat that needed the capstone of some extreme move. Also, it was a rare opportunity to impress Michael.
When we finally reached Lupine Meadows, we gathered around Jeff’s rig, changing out our shoes for flip-flops, promising one another oil massages, CBD gummies and oversized peanut butter cups. Michael kicked life into his motorcycle, and disappeared in a cloud of dust.
When we met him back at the picnic table, just as he had promised, he had performed an outfit change and now rocked worn Carhartts and a brown flannel, his hair flowing out of a mesh hat, as if he had just emerged from a car garage rather than off the summit of the Grand.
After a series of emails and calls following our trip, Michael was enthusiastic about the idea of a profile revolving around him and the Grand Teton, and our trip. When I mentioned GQ as a possible outlet, where I had placed work before, he gave a belly laugh. While he appreciated the irony, he thought one of the climbing magazines might be a better fit.
He said he’d be glad to take a couple of minutes every few days to write down whatever he found himself thinking about. We called this his “stream of consciousness writing.”
Often without line breaks, he reflected about his father, his climbing partners and his fraught relationship with the mountains. He spoke about his burgeoning love of skijoring, the zany sport of skiing while being pulled by a horse, along with his hope to move away from guiding. We’d schedule calls where he expanded on points raised in his emails, talking while I took notes. And like this, we began to align the beads of his life onto some sort of thread we could pull taut.
Meanwhile, Jeff and Michael continued to get out together. As the two drew closer, Jeff said that Michael openly addressed the client/guide relationship, without awkwardness. In 2023 and 2024, Michael took Jeff’s daughter Iris for two day trips, in addition to taking Jeff up Mt. Moran, Symmetry Spire and Nez Perce. They FaceTimed me from the summits. I remember Michael crouched in the background in his summit shirt.
In between chats we talked about doing a trip to Little Switzerland in the Alaska Range and packrafting out. I thought it would be just the thing to kick the profile into gear, the ideal framing mechanism.
We started proposing dates. Michael talked about the epic hamburger stand at the end of the raft trip out. When Michael returned from his next trip to Nepal, we’d lock it all in.
In the meantime, I began to work on the piece. Which started, as far as I could tell, with George Gardner.
[This story is an excerpt from a nearly 13,000-word feature published in Alpinist 89 (Spring 2025). To read the rest of it, you can buy a print or digital copy from our online store here.—Ed.]
