Brain Injury Is: being in a motel with a group of friends and being asked to go back to your room for something, and returning to the group and having to tell them that you have no idea what you went back to the room for.
You can meet some real strange people in the mountains. My first solo trip there was in the summer of 1991 was filled with characters of every description. There was Sue, a loner from Brainerd, Minnesota. whose car broke down at St. Mary's Campground in Glacier National Park. Who could ever forget Aunt Betty and her one-eyed dog? And the fellow who walked down out of the mountains and shared supper and a cold beer with me one cool, rainy night? There was Al and Ken from Prince George, British Columbia, who, on July 15, took me up through six inches of falling snow on a mountain hike to one of the peaks of Mt. Edith Cavell near Jasper, Alberta, Canada.
All of these people were special and helped to make my trip an experience that I will never forget. But the character that I came to know best was the Mountain Man. He was a scruffy looking dude, maybe a week or two without a shower. He was dark skinned from the many days in the sun, and his beard turning gray, provided a nice contrast. His face didn't have too many wrinkles, but you could tell by looking at him that he had been down many trails in his life. He did not talk much, but I learned a lot about him in the five weeks I was in Montana.
I had been to the mountains only once before by myself. That was in 1987, only weeks before my stroke. I had made a vow that I was going to go back to the mountains after recovering, whether someone had to push me in a chair or whether I could walk by myself. I was walking by myself. In fact, I drove by myself. The mountain man and I came face to face the first time near Red Lodge, Montana. I did not like him very much at that time. He seemed so full of confidence about his surviving in the mountains and I had just come from an outpatient program in Golden Valley, Minnesota, for people who had brain injuries.
At the nighttime fire at the East Rosebud Campground near Roscoe, Montana, about 35 miles outside of Red Lodge, we had our first disagreement. He seemed upset that I had gone up a trail that should have been for people in better shape than I was. The Sylvan Lake trail was four-and-half miles long, but rose 3500 hundred feet in that distance. After our confrontation, I learned to judge trails a little better and to remember to bring along my ankle brace, water, and rain gear.
We met face to face again about one week later outside Boseman, near the Hyalite flowage area. There were several trails in that area that were quite different in nature. On a hike up the Blackmore Mt. trail, the sun and heat were taking a toll on my strength because I had inadvertently started the hike with only a half canteen of water and no hat. I had lost my hat making an unchartered river crossing and had drunk much of my water trying to find it. I was in shorts and tank top, the temperature was pushing hard to hit 90 degrees that day, and I was beginning to sunburn quite badly. By the time I returned to my car, I was burned, very sore, and out of water. What kept me going on that hike was the knowledge that I had an ice-cold wine cooler in the trunk. The next day I followed a trail that took me up to a level that still had much snow on the trail, and the lakes that I wanted to see were still frozen over.
That night, after returning from the frozen Heather and Emerald Lakes, the mountain man and I met again. He seemed encouraged by the fact that I was in good enough shape to make two long hikes (a total of about 25 miles) in two days. However, he was not too happy when I told him that the Emerald Lake hike was done by me alone and that I was the first one up to the lake this year. In my city way of thinking, it was the Forth of July, and I, in my wisdom, never gave it a thought that the lakes would still be frozen. Who would ever have thought that there would be two to four feet of snow on the trails at this late date? He also confronted me about my stupidity on not being better prepared on the Blackmore Mt. trail when I had started out with a less than adequate water supply and was improperly dressed for the weather. The Man said I should have known that there would be snow on the higher mountain trails until well into July. The Man reminded me that I was not in Minneapolis, that it was still too early to be on the high mountain trails and that snow was very common on all the trails at that time of year. I was beginning to get the hint that I did not know as much as I thought I did.
Several weeks later, while in the Canadian Rockies outside Lake Louise near Banff, I hiked to Sentinel Pass from the Moraine Lake area. The pass, at 8,550 feet, is the highest point you can reach by maintained trail in the Canadian National Park system. It was raining hard as I left the parking lot around 8:30 A.M. Farther up the trail and about an hour later, the sky cleared a little and I could see my destination through the haze and clouds. I entered Larch Valley and was admiring the miniscule wildflowers when I heard a platoon of young cadets, British, German, but mostly Canadian, puffing up the high, steep trail behind me. They passed me as if I were standing still, which I was at that point (I needed a rest badly). The cadets passed and the leaders of the platoon brought up the rear.
One of the platoon leaders was a medic, and as he passed me by, I jokingly told him that I was glad he was along. This hike was one of hardest ones I had been on and, because of my stroke, I was not sure that I would make it to the pass as it was now starting to snow. For the next half-hour I watched the cadets and leaders slowly zigzag up the switchbacks on the side of the cliff and onto the pass. Finally, I, too, made it to the summit of the pass, and once on top, was met by the sweetest sight I have ever seen. There, right before my eyes, on a Canadian mountain top pass in a howling snow storm, twenty or so young men in military uniforms stood up and clapped and cheered because this old duffer, me, had made it to the top of a pass which they themselves, all had trouble hiking. The platoon leaders must have used me (or my stroke) as an inspiration to urge the young men to keep going and not give up.
It was a sight that could make a grown man cry, and I guess it did. They soon left to go find the iceberg that they were going to camp on that night, but I was not alone on the pass. Several other hikers had found refuge behind the rocks and crevices in an attempt to find shelter from the snowstorm. I, too, found a rock to hide behind and slid down out of the snow to eat my lunch. There he was, just a short ways from me. The Man. Looking at me. I wanted to say something, but he just smiled and nodded his head. He knew that what I had just accomplished was something that few other stroke survivors had done. The first time I had met the Man, my thoughts of actually going this high or reaching this summit were nonexistent. I told him then that I was scared on this hike and fearful that I was overstepping the boundaries of my own strength. He said that was the most intelligent thing he had heard me say since he met me.
I met this man once more on the trip. The night after climbing Mt. Edith Cavell, the night I landed in the hospital, he was there. I learned that pushing up mountain trails and peaks in the snow, past the point where the trails end, coming down out of the mountain all soaking wet, eating a large meal, and then spending time in Mettie Hot Springs, does not mix well with medications. Somehow, he had words of encouragement when I needed them the most. He helped me see that being scared was OK when I do scary things. He helped me to see that there are limits on what I can do boundaries that I should not pass. He helped me to see more clearly that to get anything done you must be prepared mentally and physically for all the storms that you will encounter along the way.
I talked a lot with the old Mountain Man before I came back to Minnesota. I knew him quite well, as he did me. Going into the mountains for five weeks alone really can get you in tune with yourself, teach you about yourself, and help you to expand your own boundaries. I talk to the Mountain Man all the time now. Actually, I see him every time I look I the mirror. He is the strong side of me, the side that is not afraid of going out and stretching boundaries. He is the side that warns me to use my head and get to know when I am in danger of doing too much. He tells me that there is more I can do if I do it smartly. He has more to teach me and I look forward to learning as much as I can about the Mountain Man, the inner man, me.