Kurt "Mountain Man" Steiner, 56, is a master stone skipper. He's spent most of his life practicing and now he's the best in the world at it, having skipped a stone 88 consecutive times for a Guinness Record in 2013. Sean Williams writes in Outside:
Skipping has brought Steiner respite from a life of depression and other forms of mental illness. It has also, in part, left him broke, divorced, and, since the death of his greatest rival, adrift from his stone-skipping peers. Now, in middle age, with a growing list of aches and pains, he must contemplate the reality that, in his most truthful moments, he throws rocks not simply because he wants to, but because he has no choice[…]
Kurt never quite felt like he fit in the world. He struggled to eat, hobbled by a compulsion never to mix the items on his plate. While other kids burst with energy, he often felt exhausted. He craved sleep so much that he winnowed his morning routine—waking, showering, scarfing some breakfast, and running to the bus stop—down to 11 minutes. Doctors suspected he was fatigued or hypoglycemic, but tests for those conditions came back negative. Physically he was healthy. He excelled at science and loved to write, but he struggled with social interaction.
Literature offered an escape; so did his high school's Apple computers, on which he coded rudimentary mazes. But for him, nothing could match the vast, glorious silence of nature, and Kurt would disappear for hours into the forests surrounding Erie. At the lake, he was perfectly happy to skip rocks, alone, for hours.
Over time he developed a sixth sense for the adjustments required for a mean toss.
