The Man in the Mountain — Terry Ray

This American epic adventure begins with a young, insecure magazine writer on an assignment to locate still-existing Hippie communes that, allegedly, have survived since the sixties. The trail leads to the remote mountains of Montana. Marty Chapman could not possibly have imagined that this trip would turn his life upside-down and send shock waves throughout the entire world.

His chance encounter with a mountain man who has lived alone in the magnificent, Alp-like wilderness for fifty of his seventy years, leads not only to Marty finding the father-figure he has always yearned for but to a mystery that old Art has kept secret for many years and grudgingly reveals to Marty.

Together, they come up with a plan to crack the secret and end-up finding something that is, literally, beyond belief. It is so mind-altering that Marty's father-figure dies from the shock and Marty is left trying to maintain his sanity while coping with something that that is so overwhelming, he cannot allow himself to even consider the possibility it could be real.