Markel

Sweeney, this is Markel. Boy—do I have a deal for you. I need one photo of you ice climbing and I’ll pay you five hundred dollars.

Cash?

I’m a legitimate businessman, Sweeney. I’ll have to write you a check.

I’m a professional too. Can I get an advance, so I can go out tonight and celebrate my good fortune?

The photo is for the back page of the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s magazine. It’s supposed to be a full page picture. You’ll be famous if you play your cards right and this will elevate you to places you never imagined. In fact, you should be paying me for the opportunity.

I’m down here staying at Moe’s, are you up there at your place? Let’s meet at Chair Five and we can discuss my contract over whiskey and beers. You can buy.

Once again, Sweeney, you are wrong. There is no contract and you couldn’t pay me to be in Girdwood right now. I hate rainy Augusts. I’m in Colorado. I’m just coming back to make you famous.

Something about this photo shoot smells fishy. One photo and I get five hundie? There’s something you’re not telling me. Where’s it going be? It has to be glacier ice because there isn’t any other ice.

The only thing fishy, is your breath. The job is in two weeks. There is a beautiful two hundred foot ice wall on the Knik Glacier. We’ll wait for a sunny day. Three photographers from San Francisco will be shooting you. I need you to show up sober with a good attitude. We’re flying in a ski plane out of Lake Hood.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

September 24, 2025

I got the news this morning from Bob Dugan that John Markel had passed last night. I knew John was in bad shape. With Dugan I prayed that he would die quick with no pain, but his death still hit Bob like a club to back of the head.

Markel had contracted CJD last year. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a rare brain disorder that leads to dementia. He lost his motor skills and the dementia came on.

Markel was in Tucson, Arizona when he contracted CJD. His daughter, Gabrielle (Gabby) and her boyfriend Nick, got him to an old friend’s Hunter Smith’s home who was a doctor in Boulder, Colorado. Hunter sent them back to Arizona and the Mayo clinic. After many diagnoses the doctors found the DJD The doctors at Mayo Clinic said he didn’t have long to live. Gabby and Nick stepped up to the plate and took care of her dad. As a caregiver for my mom, I admire that more than anything.

John Markel was a tall handsome man. His dad had a Ford dealership in Omaha, Nebraska and didn’t understand and wasn’t too impressed with John’s climbing and kayaking and wanted John to take over the dealership, but Markel always drove a new big Ford truck. Markel wasn’t known for how many jobs he’s had or how hard he worked, but he climbed the Cassin Ridge on Denali, the rock pillar on Carpathian, the first ascent of the Maiden in the Arrigetch Range, the Salathe Wall on El Capitan and was the first person to surf the Turnagain Arm’s bore tide. For a while, he had his production company which paid me five hundred dollars for one picture.

Dugan and Markel beneath the Maiden’s two peaks.

Everything about the photo shoot was great. I was the star. Markel didn’t really let me do much climbing. As soon as I got rolling he told me to slow down and be more careful. The ice was big and beautiful. The sun shone right on me. The photographers had 8 cameras and I hung in one place for a half hour and got in different position to satisfy the crew. They took way more than one picture.

Dugan visited Markel twice before the end and gave Gabby and Nick a break. On his first visit John was still walking. Gabby told Dugan to lie and tell John, we’re taking you shooting, to get him out the house. John passion was shooting clay pigeons. He’s was captain of the US team and traveled the world for competition, but Dugan didn’t take him shooting. Instead, they walked around in Eldorado Canyon. On Dugan’s second visit, Markel wasn’t walking at all.

This is a Girdwood story no matter how much Markel used to rag on Girdwood. Nick’s dad, Paul Crews, another old Girdwood friend, was with Gabby and Nick in Boulder when John died. Paul’s taking care of Markel’s business today while Nick and Gabrielle run in the Rocky Mountains above Boulder.

Markel had a sardonic look at life. His humor was drier than old crushed bone. He complained about how his body felt the low pressures, he complained about the rain on ice, the darkness, wet buggy summers and pretty much everything except his daughter, Gabrielle. To be honest, Markel had a lot of competition in the complaining league about Girdwood weather. Dugan was no slouch in this division either and there’s a bunch of old guys who suffer from the same affliction.

In recent years, Markel hasn’t spent much time in Gird. He traveled the world and he had a Airstream trailer he dragged around with his truck and shot clay pigeons with a shotgun, though mainly he was based in Tucson. Dugan, who lives right down the road from his place in Girdwood checked on his house once and called Markel and told him, everything looks good. Markel said, Good, burn it down.

I spoke with Tyler Wilson from the Tucson Trap and Skeet Club where John lived in the RV park. He had many conversations with John and acknowledged his dry humor. He said, John was a very good sporting clay shooter which is more like bird hunting than skeet or trap. More than likely he was the first to see John’s demise and wasn’t surprised he was dead. Tyler asked about Gabby and Nick and I told him what I knew.

Markel and I spoke a few times a year on the phone. I always asked, Where’s my cheque? He’d say, In the mail. When I pushed him he says, Get in line. There are many bigger guns ahead of you waiting for a cheque.

I feel for Bob Dugan. He’s lost his old friends and neighbours, McGivern, Markel, and Samuelson in short order. I guess there really is no short order in your seventies. I don’t know. Why didn’t they die in the mountains or in rivers. Why?

The town of Girdwood is going through uncontrolled growth, many changes and the future is uncertain. Gabby and Nick were raised in Girdwood and I don’t see them leaving Glacier Valley anytime soon. Gabby has her father’s beautiful hobbit home up above Girdwood in a stout hemlock forest. Nick’s father, Paul has a house in Girdwood on a steep hill too. Nick and Gabby are the future of Girdwood and that gives me hope.

Gabby is a ray of light to everyone who knows her. She’s known Bob and Sherry Dugan her whole life. Sherry gave her piano lessons for years. Hopefully someday, after weeks of rain on ice, she channels her dad’s dark humor about Girdwood and we can remember and laugh about her father, John Markel.

John Markel Photo Bob Dugan