Michael Gardner chose courage as consistently as he stirred it in others. It was clear, as seven Ridgway High School alumni traded stories of their late childhood friend, that his gentle fearlessness had always kindled their own. It was a spirit they also found in Michael’s father, George, their outdoor education teacher.
Michael died earlier this month in the mountains of eastern Nepal while attempting a first ascent of Jannu East, a 24,501-foot high peak. George also died in the mountains, soloing Grand Teton in Wyoming in 2008.
His climb of Jannu East was a second attempt and one of many firsts and fastests Michael chased over his lifetime, as he became one of the most celebrated alpinists of this generation.
But most remarkable was not his capacity for greatness, but an ability to celebrate others and engender that same feeling of capability within them. He lit up any conversation as if he was wearing a headlamp fastened over his trademark mullet, channeling an undivided brightness onto you.
One of the most accomplished alpinists of his generation, Michael Gardner died earlier this month while attempting a first ascent in Nepal. Raised in Ridgway, his other home was in Wyoming where his father, George, worked as a guide for many years and died soloing Grand Teton. Pictured here, Michael canoes on Leigh Lake in Grand Teton National Park.
Photo courtesy of Sheri Bailey and Colleen Gardner.
Childhood
Michael’s friends described a shared childhood barely contained by the mountains. At every turn, Michael would push the bounds of what seemed possible, whether that was wearing his sister’s bell bottom jeans, or skateboarding into town from Log Hill. And if his peers hadn’t already followed his example, he had a gift of bringing everyone along with him. He was proud of and strove to embody Ridgway’s brew of people: ranchers, artists and outdoor adventurers, becoming San Juan’s 2024 champion skijorer, for example. But he resisted any one label as much as he did any of the attention that came with how effortlessly he excelled at most things.
He shared a lot of gifts with his father: climbing, skiing and thinking deeply. But skateboarding was something George picked up from Michael, deciding to learn alongside his son once he got really into the sport. It was always an active relationship between them, his friends said.
Michael played a big role in initiating Ridgway’s skate park, fundraising and pitching at town council meetings with his skate group, the self-titled Street Pirates. His friends said his mom, Colleen, always hosted the best birthday parties there.
Michael Gardner runs through the hallways of Ridgway High School his freshman year. His friends knew him for his contagious courage and presence that always focused on their lives, even as he ascended into the highest ranks of alpinism. Photo courtesy of Sam Willits
Michael’s favorite thing about skateboarding was that it always ended in failure, said his friend, Sawyer Firkins. It was about contentment in that defeat and the growth and challenge available next time.
This philosophy was just one example of how Michael treated extreme sports as a way of life. It wasn’t just in what he did, his friends said, but how he sought growth and helped others do the same — a likeness between father and son.
His sister Megan described the two as having a shared way of moving.
When their father died in 2008, Megan said she was always looking for her father through people and being the person, teacher and friend that he was.
“Michael was so much like my father in so many ways, and so he didn’t have to try in that way,” she said. Instead, he longed for his father in the mountains and on the rocks.
Ascent
Their family took their first mountaineering trip to Nepal when Michael was 8. The place and culture immediately resonated with him, Megan said. He spent most of their trip with the porters, eating meals with them — they even fitted him with the head strap they use to carry packs. When he returned to Ridgway he rarely took off the Buddhist monk robes he brought back and shared beyond-his-years musings with his classmates.
Though George died when Michael was 16, the heaviness really hit in his early twenties, Megan said.
He ended up switching colleges, finishing school in Vermont with a thesis focused on the time he’d spent in Nepal and the spirituality and philosophy he found in those mountains.
Michael didn’t plan on becoming an alpinist, it was more of an organic outcome of his wealth of skill and affinity for challenge, said his friend Sam Willits.
Alpinism is distinguished by using mixed climbing techniques to take the most difficult, and often untouched, route up the mountain. Mountaineering often follows a simpler route, focused on reaching the summit.
Courtesy photo
After graduating college he began surrounding himself with more of his father’s climbing friends in Wyoming — even after losing George he never skipped a summer in the Tetons. He was soon hired as one of Exum Mountain Guides’ youngest employees, the same company his father had guided for.
Quickly his early 20s into early 30s turned into a decade of chasing the most challenging mountain conditions across three continents and four seasons, first as a guide, and soon, as an accoladed athlete. He hounded new routes and faster records in Alaska, Antarctica, Idaho and the Himalayas in Nepal.
Megan said though the Tetons were always No. 1, Alaska was special as it was where he had become a professional separate from his dad as a guide for Alaska Mountaineering School.
He was always taking on extreme challenges in these places, but things started intensifying about five years ago as he ascended into the upper echelon of alpinism. He did much of it rapidly and quietly alongside his close friend and primary partner Sam Hennessey.
The weight
Megan said she’s unsure if her brother kept a low profile in part to shield herself and their mom, Colleen, from the worry. He loved and climbed fiercely, two things that often found themselves at odds.
Michael’s friends said they’d have to find out about his record-breaking accomplishments through other people, because he’d spend time together focusing on their lives instead.
Despite his international, otherworldly feats, he was never out of reach, Megan said, always managing to show up and convey immense support for her and his loved ones.
He’d surprise them by stopping by, even at their weddings. He spent last Christmas delivering an armful of letters of gratitude. He loved being an uncle, and battered himself trying to impress his nephews at the skatepark. And regardless of where he’d been, he’d always foreground them and his pride for whatever it was they were doing. Each one of his friends felt he was their biggest fan.
Megan said though she tried not to know a lot about what Michael was really doing, she finally approached him for a head-on conversation about three years ago. It followed the loss of one of his longtime mentors in a rafting accident.
“I think he was at that point of knowing his physical capabilities of doing these really big things, and then [knowing] the moral piece of it, you know? And so it was a dark time, and we had a lot of conversations,” Megan said.
In the end, Michael asked Megan for the freedom to live out his dream of doing things no one had done before. And she gave him her blessing.
But it was not the end of wrestling with the precarity of his craft, and he didn’t subscribe to the inevitably of it. He wrote some of his most intimate reflections on the topic in an Alpinist article titled “Worth the Weight?”
His friends said when Michael wrote that piece, it marked a shift from what they saw as a once-reckless mindset of finding his father through brushes with death. They saw a healing where Michael became even more like George but also started drawing a separation from certain things, like moving out of his father’s old cabin that he lived in for years during his time in Jackson, Wyoming.
At the same time he began embarking on these exponentially dangerous trips, it felt like he was looking to really build a life outside of the mountains too, his friends said.
“He shared with me in the past year that he just wanted my mom to understand, not necessarily like what he was doing, but just kind of like that he was grown up, you know, that he had actually made it,” Megan said.
Home
Megan visited Michael’s new home, a yurt on an inholding of Teton National Park, for the first time the week after he died.
This photo shows Gardner’s yurt, which is located where he could spot Grand Teton out his kitchen window. Courtesy photo.
She was certain he would have grown old here. It was where he always bragged about taking his first steps and where he had met his girlfriend, Olympic snowboarder Elena Hight, and found an unintentional community of people from all corners — skiers, climbers, childhood friends and chosen family.
From the kitchen window there’s a perfect view of Grand Teton, the mountain his father fell from.
It would have been Michael’s 33rd birthday Tuesday. In the same house where Michael grew up on Log Hill, Megan and Colleen raised a Buddhist prayer flag next to the one they’ve raised for George each year since he died.
Both flags now fly side by side, free in the mountain air.
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A service will be held for Michael Gardner at Huidekoper Ranch in Wilson, Wyoming on Nov. 2. And the George Gardner Scholarship Fund’s annual fundraiser, which sponsors outdoor programming for K-12 youth, is being held earlier that week on Oct. 29. “Growing Ice, Ideas & Community,” features an evening with Orion Willits, Corey Gera and Kael Van Buskirk. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., show starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Ouray County 4-H Center, 22739 Highway 550 in Ridgway. $20 adults, $10 students. Visit georgefund.org for more info.
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Lia Salvatierra is a journalist with Report for America, a national service program that boosts reporting resources in underserved areas. You can support her work by making a tax-deductible donation here.
