Seeking serenity

• By CAROL ANNE BLITZER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 3, 2009 - Page: 1D

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Dr. Martin Langston works with patients who have had strokes, traumatic injuries, sports injuries and other similar problems.

His occupation as a rehabilitation physician is stressful at times. For many, his hobby can be stressful and dangerous.

Langston is a mountain climber who travels the world pursuing goals he has set for himself.

“For me, mountain climbing is like serenity,” he said. “I can get away from all of my worries and cares. I get away from the cell phone and beepers. It’s a whole other world.”

Langston, whose father was in the Air Force, moved all over the world as a child until the family finally settled in Denver.

“My mother would take us on summer trips to all sorts of vacation spots,” Langston said. “We would go horseback riding in the mountains.”

When Langston was 13 or 14, his parents sent him on an Outward Bound camping expedition. “Outward Bound teaches you things like teamwork, conquering fears and independence,” said Langston, who fell in love with rock climbing and rappelling on the trip .

“It was so much fun. I felt like I was flying,” he said. When he returned home, he used his newly acquired skills to  climb the side of his family’s brick home.

As an undergraduate at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico, Langston reacquainted himself with the mountains, where he often practiced long- distance running and did some mountain climbing.

After graduating from Tulane University Medical School, Langston did a residency in Loma Linda, Calif. It was there that he really started mountain climbing. By that time he was married with three children whom he occasionally took to Big Bear Mountain to hike.

In 1996, Langston took a position with the NeuroMedical Center and moved to Baton Rouge. “I had time to go on better vacations,” he said. “I was actually making some money.”

His first mountain adventure was in 2001 in Argentina. He hiked some small mountains at Iguaza Falls and then did some mountain climbing in Patagonia in southern Argentina with Carlos Roldan, a native of Argentina who is a tennis instructor at a local YMCA.

When Langston returned from Argentina, he decided to buy “some real equipment.” He took a few courses in wilderness medicine and travel medicine and climbed mountains in Big Sky, Mont.