About Me — Brent Hart
Opening up old scars: How do you remember old wounds?
The Berg Lake Trail is known for some of the finest scenery in British Columbia and perhaps the world. Including the stunning view of the highest peak of the Canadian Rockies, Mount Robson.
Here’s the story of how the most life-altering view for me… was that of the dirt:
Never Trust Canadians When They Say It’s an Easy Bike Ride
To do Berg Lake in a day, it's a 40+ kilometre out-and-back hike and bike with 800 metres worth of elevation gain.
This 22-year-old Australian knew he had the legs to get up with — but this was his first ever time on a mountain bike.
Starting with a bike ride on a foreign bike and a few too many drinks from the night before was a real confidence killer.
The stretch from the car park to Kinney Lake felt like it could have been engraved on my tombstone.
Here lies: Brent Hart
He really thought the fourth pint was a good idea.
Seven kilometres, practically all elevation — not just uphill but up-mountain. Whilst my party is doing their best, the helmet-less bike-borrowing beginner of the group is walking — heaving.
But it’s the downhill that gets you.
The First Scar
I loved being a kid in Australia — there are just so many opportunities to hurt yourself.
A week without scraped knees was a week wasted.
I grew up on the Gold Coast, close to Surfers Paradise, and with names like that, it’s hard to imagine staying inside. In school, books alone didn’t cut it — “sporty” was a prerequisite.
Hiking, BMX, surfing, swimming, running, rugby, soccer, tennis, Australian handball (I’ll teach you sometime) — and skating.
Longboarding as a kid was how I tested my nerve.
The hill next to my house was a ritual for my neighbourhood friends and me. You’d find the spot on it you were comfortable starting to drop from, then take two steps up. Sooner or later, we got to the top.
But younger than that, when mothers didn’t let you go much further than you could be thrown, the driveways were all the rage.
I still remember the rumble of my exposed aggregate driveway as I rolled down headfirst, but I will never forget the singular, perfectly placed rock…
Having blood drip from your neck as a seven-year-old is more confronting than painful. The pain comes later from the needle to the chin.
One rocky faceplant later, what’s left is a sweet little scar. Hidden underneath the jaw.
Still, I remained invested in activity — especially hiking — which brings us back:
To The Mountain Top
You survive the bike ride, and you’re treated to waterfall after waterfall. Though also switchback after switchback. You think the trek to Kinney Lake was the elevation? You haven’t seen much yet.
The view of Berg Lake was as breathtaking as the glacial temperature of its waters. To think I was considering not taking the dip: always jump in.
It restarted me, jump-started me.
Getting back to the car park was going to be easy.
I especially love the “and-back” portion of an out-and-back hike; it’s always a pensive and reflective experience. (The kind of person I obviously very much lean into.)
I retrace my steps and see a new view of the valley I hadn’t considered from down below.
Walking down such an elevation can be characterised as nothing less than controlled falling. And we are doing it so stylishly — switchback after switchback.
We make our way back onto our bikes at Kinney Lake, and we’re off, racing toward our proverbial finish line to, in turn, get in line for an O’ Shea’s burger back home.
We’re speed hungry, we’re burger hungry. I took my two steps, then began the drop.
It’s all downhill from here.
Do you ever get so present in a moment that you can feel it begin? That, in a moment like this one, you know something is going to go terribly, terribly wrong?
I didn’t feel it getting on the bike.
I didn’t feel it, trying my best to navigate the downhill switchbacks.
I didn’t feel it when there was nothing left to go but downhill.
I felt it 15 seconds before, before my front wheel stopped dead, and my back wheel followed me — over the handlebars and onto my shoulder.
And a helmet-less head.
Getting Concussed — Dazed and Confused
Concussions are so isolating.
Here I was nursing some stitches to the chin and elbow, glue to the cheek, a deep-grazed shoulder, and a headache like you wouldn’t believe.
But what had the most effect was having to stay inside and avoid overstimulating conversations or activities — all for a dark, screen-less, book-less room.
It was only after my second head injury that I did something about it.
Yes, very silly, I did it twice in the span of a month, which can alter the recovery time a good deal. The second time, I just fell over walking, though. So I chose the cooler story to introduce myself with, sue me.
This time I was allowed to read, though I couldn’t do it very well for the first week, so instead I wrote:
- I wrote about how scared I was that I had seriously hurt myself.
- I wrote about how I didn’t know how long the recovery would take, but I had a job at a food truck for the summer — a job I have since given up.
- I wrote about my goals for the future. About how I wanted them to have something to do with writing.
- I wrote about how far I’ve come, that I saved and worked hard, and now I’m living in Canada, a dream of mine for 6 years.
- How having to see the Canadian consulate in Sydney gave me back my travel itch and had me feel things I needed a way of expressing.
But most important, perhaps, is that unless I follow up on my visa application, I have limited time here.
And a concussion that showed me I wasn’t invincible and reminded me I have a limited amount of time in general.
That I had been wasting an opportunity to test myself and try something new.
The law of motivational inertia:
To act upon your general motion, to redefine your daily life, you’re going to need to apply some force.
Something I wish I had confronted sooner. But it’s all a part of having:
A Life Lived
I miss my job, I miss the family I left behind in Oz. Sometimes, without realising, I do wish for the ruby slippers.
Three clicks and I’m settled back to the known, the tried and true, the lived and tested.
Or maybe rather, I’m really wishing for the knowledge I have now about myself, back then.
Though what would you tell yourself from six years ago?
You are Brent, you’re living across the world, walking up and subsequently falling down mountains. You love cooking and photography. How you hadn’t realised the former until months ago, we mightn’t know.
But what you really love to do is write; you’re a writer at heart. (Hart, hehe)
You want to write about travel, photography, hiking, cooking, what new productivity trick you’re trying, why Pinocchio terrified you growing up — coming from a sense of lived experience, not authority.*
The world is different and bigger than you realised. Oh, and watch out — the scar on your chin is a bit different too.
*Though I am an authority on why Pinocchio is terrifying to young boys.
To Conclude
Brent — Celtic — “From a steep hill”
Hart — Celtic — “Descendant of Art, byname meaning Bear, Hero”
My name means “Bear from a steep hill”; instead have a photo of a cow from the Australian prairies.
Because until I do photograph a bear on a steep hill, this is the photo I’ve taken that most feels like me.
Basking in a country Australian sunset, eyes forward.
Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.
Thank you for reading. If you’ve read this far, I’d love to know if there was a line that stood out to you. I hope I’ll be seeing you around the Medium world!
