National Geographic opened the polls today for their Adventurer of the Year honor. You can vote on their site until the 15th of January.
Most noticeable on the list is Alex Honnold who starred in the first episode of the television series First Ascent. He made the list for his 36-hour climb in Yosemite in which he broke the speed record for consecutive ascents on El Capitan.
Ed Stafford’s journey from source to sea along the Amazon seems to have gotten the most press. This 860-day journey had its hardships but Stafford finished, with companion Gadiel "Cho" Sanchez Rivera, on April 9, 2010.
Their competition is tough: a kid who climbed to Everest’s basecamp at age 9 and then summited the highest peak in all 50 states in 43 days, and a woman who climbed all fourteen 8,000 meter peaks.
And those who made their journey at sea: a woman who rowed the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, a man who crossed the Pacific in a sailboat made of plastic bottles, a 16-year-old girl who circumnavigated the globe in a sailboat, the world’s best paddleboarder, and a man who broke the speed record for rowing across the Atlantic.
Then there’s Martin Wikelski, the tracker. He has studied cuckoos, ducks, manakins, songbirds, mountain trangopans, blood pheasants, gulls, blackbirds, storks, and giant tortoises. “And—what may be most impressive—precisely measured a mass migration of bumblebees in Germany,” says Ryan Bradley on the National Geographic Web site.
Wikelski’s work is being used to predict natural disasters.
Congratulations to everyone on this list. Your year was slightly more productive than mine.
Here's the Adventure Blog's story on this contest.
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