Battling the Brain: A Neurological Illness Backcountry Skiing

Out Alive from Backpacker

Louisa Albanese

Places & Travel, Sports, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We've written about the Spearhead Traverse before as The Best Worst Ski Trip Ever. But in this story, we explore the challenges of neurological illness in the backcountry. Backpacker Magazine’s former Editor-in-Chief Dennis Lewon, shares his personal journey battling a rare brain disease while backcountry skiing on a glacier in British Columbia. From navigating double vision on a treacherous ski trail to overcoming a neurological condition in the wilderness, this episode is a testament to the power of determination and "there's nothing going slow can't fix". You can see a transcript of this story here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Out-alive is made possible by Outside Plus subscribers.
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0:12.1	Browse gear reviews, training plans, travel guides, videos, and the survival stories you
0:17.1	love.
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0:23.6	get started.
0:24.9	Outside Plus, the one subscription to fuel all your adventures.
0:30.0	Usually, the Out-alive team searches far and wide for stories to feature on this show.
0:43.6	We scour the internet, read accident reports, and sometimes listeners like you will reach
0:48.6	out with tales of your own.
0:51.0	But for today's story, we didn't have to look too far at all.
0:55.2	In fact, all we had to do was walk down the hall and knock on the office door of our former
1:00.4	boss.
1:01.4	I made a decision to survive in that survival mode.
1:06.8	The idea of dying wasn't in my head.
1:08.7	I knew immediately it was the worst case scenario.
1:10.8	I was in a fight for my life situation.
1:12.8	Whenever you walk out on these trails, you're in their house.
1:17.4	I'm Louisa Albinese and you're listening to Out-alive by Backpacker.
1:21.5	In each episode of this podcast, we'll bring you real stories of real people who survived
1:26.6	the unsurvivable.
1:27.6	I saw the ropes zip through the repel ring and I couldn't do anything.
	...

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Generated transcripts are the property of Louisa Albanese and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.