The River Runner

This is an incredible story about an American young boy who grew up to be the world’s number one kayaking sportsman, a remarkably outstanding expedition kayaker. As a child life seemed to be an everyday struggle. Time hung heavy on the two brothers who were born to a teacher.

This particular fellow is Scott Lindgren with his brother Andrian, both are dependent on their mother for their basic requirements of life. Their major grievance is their father who separated from their mother at an early age leaving the three to their own devices. The hard reality of life then dawns upon them every single minute. The three then just clamber on to surmount the exceedingly tough challenges in life. Both brothers are exceptionally good at sports.

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Scott is 30 and a world-class kayaker by now. Scott has been living in Sanberdino. Out on the street life was pretty tough. Scott usually got picked up on. He had numerous fights. Both brothers were bullied and Scott got stabbed too.

They were typically the valley kids. They had a taste for a boat that their father possessed while they were small children. Now this family of three moved from Sanberdino to Sacramento. Their mother had left the school where she was teaching.

Scott had now become a river guide. He went to Idaho, and Norfolk was ideally the best venue for such crazy adventures. Along the way, he picked up many friends. Prominent among them is Chuck Munsey who is an expert kayaker. Darren and others were also meant to be his friends and of course, they made a great team of expedition kayakers.

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Kayaking was not just fun and sport. Scott and Chuck Munsey were looking beyond America. They wanted to try something more crazier, which was insanely, and brutally tough. Actually, they were taking the whole thing on to the next level. They thought of the sacred mountain Kailash. The lore of Mount Kailash is very interesting. 5,000 plus years people have been writing about… there are four great rivers of Karakoram and the Himalayas drained from its glaciers. The direction for Scott became very apparent. He strove for excellence. Trying his best to achieve the unachievable.

Adventurers call Tibet’s Yarlung Tsangpo the “Everest of Rivers” for good reason. Stretches of it are some of the least-explored places in the world, and tales of failed expeditions abound. With headwaters in western Tibet near Mount Kailash, the river has the highest average elevation—4,000 meters (13,000 feet)—of any major river in the world.

This is the highest of all the rivers in the world. Scott with his team went there, they spent 90 harrowing days accessing the area, the Gorges through satellite imaging. This was again a stupendous task, nobody had done it before.

Four rivers that originate from Mount Kailash are the Indus River, the Sutlej, the Tsangpo River, and the Karnali River.

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It was the start of the dream. When Scott came from Nepal the first year. It was that kind of expedition that set the precedent of expedition kayaking. Now they came and left for California.

Scott had now bought a V8 video camera, he would stick this between his legs and he filmed all the voyages that he would be ready to embark upon. By now he became friends with Chuck, Johnnie, Willie, and Kern. They were the best of friends. Chuck was the driving force for them all. They all kind of established places on the river. It was an eclectic group of kids from all over the world.

Kayaking alone didn’t serve the purpose so filming was another area that drew millions towards this sport. Resultantly it paved the way for lucrative filming docuseries. Driftwood productions were the first ever such endeavor.

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The brothers were becoming quite famous and well-known. Happier times seem never-ending but nature has its own strange laws. Scott by now started to feel pain in his head for that he was advised an MRI by a renowned doctor. He got his MRI done. Shockingly he found that there was a small tumour on the back of his head about the side of a baseball. His mother fell down on her knees when she came to know and everything changed overnight. Scott was depressed because he had planned to go navigate Indus. For he was to travel to Pakistan. Everything came to a juddering halt. The tumour had to be removed surgically. So with hugs and kisses the head nurse led him to the operation theatre through the hallway. There is a likelihood that such patients might survive and vice versa. The operation went well and the scare was gone for the moment. But this brought about a great change in Scott. The fear was always lurking in the back of his mind which kind of decelerated his normal pace of life. He was not thinking about kayaking anymore.

“Smell the sea and feel the sky, let your soul and spirit fly again”.

Morrison

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He wanted to do the same but could not.

Patricia Damen an entrepreneur remembers that when she first met Scott on a ski hill through a mutual friend, it was the same Scott who was coming out of healing through a brain tumour.

Scott was undeniably the love of her life. Yet he had certain strong walls around him that prevented even Patricia to move in fully. Yet they loved each other immensely. She helped him through the therapeutic process of exploring their negative love patterns. There was so much glaringly clear that he needed to repair emotionally. He exercised, jogged, and even went through transcendental meditation. This thing helped him slowly and gradually recover his lost spirit.

Vulnerability was not his weakness anymore, but it became his strength. The vulnerability was a way forward.

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Patricia guided him and he dived into yoga, and became a fierce athlete. Aligning himself with the very natural forces which help govern one’s life. He improved not physically but mentally as well as spiritually. He was beginning to think of kayaking again.

He slowly started to get back into kayaking. He swam a lot. It was literally starting over from scratch. He was starting to feel that love again for having his life back at the river.

He wanted to paddle the fourth river now. The mighty INDUS. Aniol was a new inspiration. Scott believes what Aniol did for him no one else could have ever thought of doing it.

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He believes and values that at this moment his friends didn’t ostracise him. He was now looking for a bunch of twenty-year-old kids to get him back into action. To go run the INDUS. He is set to go for an MRI which remains a reality for him once a year. He went and got a picture taken. The doctor Jain says that the tumour has reemerged and needs radiation therapies. He completely ignores what the doctor has to say. Rather girds up the loins to paddle the INDUS. He flew to Pakistan, particularly the Gilgit Baltistan area. They were warmly welcomed by the Pakistani community. For him, he says, ‘”There’s no doubt that indus is the hardest of all the rivers he’s done.”

But his friends have been, and Aniol has been the most supportive. But he says this has been the most supportive expedition ever. Successfully they all ran the indus finally making a move back home. And now he gets time to see the doctor, and gets a picture taken. Miraculously, the tumour stopped growing. The good thing is he got a clean chit. He could live the rest of his life just not worrying about anything and most of all… taking it easy how he’s learned to tame himself to just take things as they come.