To say that Gordon Thompson has lived an adventurous life outdoors might be an understatement.

Thompson has climbed mountains from Alaska to South America. He has scuba dived in Washington's Puget Sound and performed skin diving in the Atlantic Ocean.

Thompson was a hang glider for two and a half decades, has solo hiked the length of the both the Bob Marshall Wilderness and the Beartooth Mountains, was attacked by a bear and came face to face with a shark. Not to mention a lifetime of free-spirited backpacking in the mountains of Montana.

But still, the modest 74-year-old Thompson -- who suffered a stroke in 2004 -- first told me he didn't think he did anything very interesting.

Thompson first fell in love with the outdoors growing up in Bozeman, when he and his brother went along on their dad's hunting trips in the 1940s. After graduating from Bozeman High School, he attended Montana State College (now MSU), majoring in zoology and fish and wildlife management.

He was a school teacher for 11 years, teaching science and math, beginning at Judith Gap and Big Sandy high schools. After attaining his master's degree in zoology, he taught at the Helena Junior High (now the Middle School) from 1964-71.

In the student-faculty basketball games at HJHS, he went by the nickname of "Cat" Thompson, after the legendary Bobcat hoopster. This reporter was one of Gordon's students then, and I can still picture him flying through the air, pulling down rebounds against our best players.

In 1972, he taught the prisoners at the state prison in Deer Lodge for one year. He then went to work for the Forest Service for several years, where his duties included fighting forest fires.

Gordon then worked for Social Rehab Services for eight years, handling Social Security disability claims. Living at Blue Sky Heights, he ran to and from work every day, year-around.

"I'd leave about seven to get there by eight, and would get back home about six," he said, describing those 20-mile cross-country roundtrip jaunts. "Lots of mornings in the summertime I'd have breakfast on Mount Ascension and watch the sunrise. On the way back, I'd run through Tucker Gulch near the limestone mine, what is now part of Montana City," Thompson said.

Gordon and his wife, Cathy (whom he met at his brother's wedding), raised two daughters -- Shelly and Wendy. Cathy died in 1989.

From 1986 to 1991, Thompson competed at distance running. In 1987, at 53 years of age, he participated in five marathons. His best time was a 3 hour, 14 minute clocking.

During one of Thompson's trail-running excursions above Forest Park, he encountered a black bear near Sheep Mountain. A female with cubs, she attacked him protecting her offspring, dragging him down a hill. After his dog distracted the bear, he was able to avoid further injury by keeping on the opposite side of a tree from the bruin. After he crawled home, Cathy took him to the hospital where, he was treated for puncture wounds to his leg and hip.

He finally had to quit running when his heels started hurting too much. But that didn't stop him from one of his lifelong passions, that being spending time in the mountains.

Thompson took several week-and-a-half solo backpacking adventures. Once his wife dropped him at the Dearborn River, and picked him up 11 days later near Essex. Another time, he took off from near Livingston, hiking through the Beartooths for 11 days, and was picked up not far from Red Lodge. "I'd start at one end and just keep going until I ran out of mountains. The outdoors is my church," Thompson said.

He first joined the Montana Wilderness Association in 1958. In the 1980s and '90s, he conducted numerous organized hikes for the MWA. His favorites were the Sleeping Giant climbs. Over a period of eight years, he annually guided about two to three different groups of six to 12 people to the top of the Nose.

One of the guys he met on those excursions was Andy Kukolax. The two men became close friends and hiking buddies.

"Gordon had a very easy style of transferring his extensive knowledge of the wildlife, flora and fauna on those field trips to the Nose," said Kukolax, author of the book "The Ultralight Wildflower Guide to the Central Montana Rocky Mountains." "He also volunteered for the BLM to lead tours of the bald eagle site near Canyon Ferry Lake. Gordon taught me how to lead hikes and inspired me to write my book."

Thompson and Kukolax hiked together on a weekly basis for almost a decade, taking turns leading the way and exploring the surrounding mountains. After Thompson stepped aside from conducting the Sleeping Giant expeditions, Patricia Bik took over as lead hiker, and then was replaced by Kukolax.

"One time I took the Blue Angels pilots to the top of the Sleeping Giant, and Gordon Thompson and Wes Synness wanted to join us," Kukolax said. "It made for a very interesting trip, with Gordon providing the landscape and wildlife information, and Wes relating the history of his family's homestead."

In the wintertime, Thompson strapped on the cross country skis and took numerous trips for the MWA, guiding folks on nine-mile trips to places like Casey Peak, Elkhorn Peak and Stemple Pass.

Not to be tied down by the ground, Thompson took the air in about 1975, when he started hang gliding. He built his first hang glider by hand from a kit. Off and on for the next 25 years, he soared overhead with fellow gliders like Parry Jones and Steve Tubbs. One of his launching sites was a peak near Sieben Ranch country, where the highway enters the Wolf Creek canyon. "I could fly over the Sleeping Giant and back from there," Thompson said. "And there's a 9,500 foot launch at the Butte highlands, where I could get up to 16,000 feet. I could glide for two hours and travel 25 miles."

"I remember the time Gordon hang glided off of Hogback, and then bushwhacked his way back up the mountain to get his car," Kukolax said. "He got to the top about midnight and didn't get home until about 1 a.m. The next day he hiked up Casey Peak. And he was in his late 60s at the time."

Thompson has climbed in Alaska's Rangle Mountains and explored the Superstitious Mountains in Arizona. And he didn't limit his adventures to North America. In about 2000, Gordon and Joyce Saunders led a group on a four-day trip along a 14,000 foot Inca trail to Machu Picchu, in Peru. On a visit to an island in Belise, he went free diving in the Atlantic Ocean, where encountered a shark.

These days, Thompson's stroke has limited his mobility. But this reporter has witnessed him climb a set of stairs with the same dogged determination that once took him to the top of Granite Peak.

Reporter Curt Synness: 449-2150 or curt52s@bresnan.net