Sunday, June 6, 2010

Outside's 'Game Changers' list

The April issue of Outside magazine featured a cool Top 10 list that it called “Game Changers: The Ten Greatest Adventurers Since 1900.”
I enjoy lists like this, and I’m passing this one on to you tonight. Here it is, counting down from ten to one.
10. Loic Jean-Albert (1978-): Famous wingsuit flyer, at times clocking over 100 miles per hour in what’s the closest thing to human flight so far.
9. Robyn Davidson (1950-): In 1977, she became the first woman to cross the Australian Outback. It took her six months, and she covered 1,700 miles. She wrote a book about it in 1980 titled “Tracks.”
8. Greg Noll (1937-): Famous surfer, known for riding the biggest wave ever ridden at the time (30 feet) in 1969 at Oahu’s Makaha Point.
7. Doug Ammons (1957-): Famous kayaker. In 1990, he did the second descent of British Columbia’s Grand Canyon of the Stikine, a 60-mile Class V stretch. In 1992, he did it solo, something that’s never been repeated.
6. Yvon Chouinard (1938-): A rock-climbing legend, who “pioneered big-wall climbing and ground-up style.” Also the founder of the Patagonia brand of clothing and outdoor equipment.
5. Lynn Hill (1961-): A dominant force in the world of sport climbing. She claimed the first free ascent (using only her hands, feet and a rope) of El Cap’s 2,900-foot Nose route.
4. Thor Yeyerdahl (1914-2002): In 1947, Yeyerdahl “and a crew of five sailed a handmade balsa replica of a simple Inca pae-pae raft 5,000 miles from Peru to the South Pacific, stunning naval architects and revolutionizing anthropology.”
3. Beryl Markham (1902-1986): A native of Britian, she completed the first east to west solo flight across the Atlantic in 1936.
2. Reinhold Messner (1944-): One tough dude. He climbed all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks, including Everest, without supplemental oxygen. Considered to be the greatest climber of all time, he’s also known for his beliefe in the Yeti, aka, the Abominable Snowman.
1. Roald Amundsen (1872-1928): “The Norwegian (pictured above) was the first to sail the Northwest Passage, in 1903, trek to the South Pole, in 1911, and definitively see the North Pole (from a zeppelin) in 1926.”

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