The future doesn’t just happen. The next frontiers of adventure, fitness, gear, and sport are crafted by bold visionaries with world-changing dreams—and the minds and muscles to make them real. Behold the 25 all-star innovators leading us beyond tomorrow.

1. Conrad Anker: High-Altitude Altruist
2. Josh Donlan: Jurassic Park Ecologist
3. Cheryl Rogowski: Organic Genius
4. Bertrand Piccard: Capt. Sun
5. John Shroder: Glacier Watchdog
6. Andrea Fischer: Ice Eccentric
7. Jack Shea: Field Educator
8. Olav Heyerdahl: Upstart Mariner
9. Lara Merriken: Raw Food Guru
10. David Gump: Space Pioneer
11. Dan Buettner: Interactive Explorer
12. Fabien Cousteau: Underwater Auteur
13. Jeb Corliss and Maria von Egidy: Wing People
14. Robert Kunz: New-Wave Nutritionist
15. Colin Angus: Epic Addict
16. Kerry Black: Wave Maker
17. New York City Fire Dept.: Escape Artists
18. Pat Goodman: Aerial Innovator
19. Hazel Barton: Medicine Hunter
20. Alan Darlington: Clean-Air Engineer
21. Richard Jenkins: Speed Demon
22. Olaf Malver: Intrepid ºÚÁϳԹÏÍør
23. Al Gore: Media Tycoon
24. Julie Bargmann: Landscape Survivor
25. Daniel Emmett: Hydrogen Hero

Conrad Anker: High-Altitude Altruist

Conrad Anker

HIGHER CALLING: Anker in Bozeman, Montana, where he does work on behalf of the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation ().

MISSION // IMPROVING THE ODDS FOR SHERPAS

Kicking off our all-stars pantheon, CONRAD ANKER writes that it took the death of his best friend to show him what really counts

ON OCTOBER 5, 1999, THE WORLD AS I PERCEIVED IT CHANGED. I was one of a group of Americans who had traveled to Tibet to ski the immense south face of Shishapangma. As I was traversing a glacier below the 26,289-foot peak with mountaineers David Bridges and Alex Lowe, an enormous avalanche cut loose thousands of feet above us. The churning mass of ice, accompanied by a blast of supersonic wind, swept David and Alex to their deaths. I was thrown 90 feet across the glacier, but by some freak of nature I survived. As I sank into a miasma of guilt, I began to wrestle with the question: Why?

That quickly changed from an analytical evaluation of the avalanche and my actions during the moments before it hit to a more metaphysical line of inquiry. Why had I been given a second chance? And what was I going to do with it? In the wake of the avalanche’s devastation, I realized that I was a different person. I began to ask myself, Who can I help in this new life, and how can I best help them?

These are questions we all need to ask of ourselves—and then turn our answers into action.

Alex had been my closest friend, my climbing partner, my spiritual brother. When he perished he left behind his wife of nearly 18 years, Jennifer, and three young boys: Max, ten; Sam, seven; and Isaac, three. As the five of us mourned our loss, we grew closer. From the ashes of our shared grief emerged an unexpected bond of love like nothing I had ever experienced. In April 2001, Jenni and I were married, and Max, Sam, and Isaac became my sons.

When Alex was alive, he climbed often in the Himalayas, building a special rapport with the Sherpas and other mountain tribes. Inspired by the connections Alex had established in Nepal, and during his other expeditions to Pakistan and Baffin Island, Jenni created the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation (ALCF) as a way to help indigenous mountain people around the globe. In the spring of 2002, on a trekking trip I’d been hired to guide to Everest Base Camp, Jenni and I would rig top ropes and climb with the Sherpas on nearby boulders and frozen waterfalls. Sherpas have a reputation for being the strongest climbers on Everest—and in fact they almost always are far stronger than any of the foreign climbers who hire them. But most Sherpas have been taught little or nothing about avalanche forecasting, crevasse rescue, or even such rudimentary skills as how to tie into a rope properly. And as a consequence, too many Sherpas die in easily preventable accidents. It occurred to us that one way to make their work less dangerous would be to create a climbing school funded by the ALCF and taught by American mountaineers. Thus the Khumbu Climbing School was conceived.

For two years, our vision guided us through countless hours of planning and fundraising. The passionate commitment of our Bozeman, Montana, community and the outdoor industry came through. In February 2004, Jenni, the boys, and I trekked with fellow ALCF board member and friend Jon Krakauer and six volunteer mountain guides to the Nepalese village of Phortse, a day’s walk above Namche Bazaar, for the inaugural session of the Khumbu Climbing School. We taught our students—many of them high-altitude porters who had completed multiple ascents of Everest and other 8,000-meter peaks—how to inspect equipment, tie knots, place protection, manage ropes, administer first aid, and belay. When that first session concluded a week later, graduating 35 students, our dream was realized.

In the winter of 2005 we held the school again, this time adding an English class to the curriculum; 55 students graduated. In January we expect to graduate more than 100. We anticipate that within a few years we Americans will be able to stay home and let the Sherpas run the school themselves.

Looking back on the avalanche that took Alex from us six years ago, nobody can say for certain why he died and I was spared. The “why” is unknowable. What is important is that out of the tragedy on Shishapangma, I found new purpose. And if one of its results is that fewer Sherpas are likely to perish on the peaks of their homeland—well, for that I would be exceedingly grateful.

Josh Donlan: Jurassic Park Ecologist

MISSION // BRING BACK THE BEASTS

CHEETAHS, MAMMOTHS, AND OTHER LARGE FAUNA once roamed North America, but they disappeared at about the same time humans showed up on the continent. Now, conservationist and Cornell Ph.D. candidate Josh Donlan wants to re-wild the continent—yes, this continent—with their related megaspecies. The 32-year-old former ski-and-climbing bum admits the idea might sound crazy, but he’s not advocating the release of lions—yet. The plan, unveiled in August in the journal Nature and backed by ecology luminaries like Michael Soulé, Paul Martin, and James Estes, is already under way, with the goal of introducing 100-pound Bolsón tortoises on Ted Turner’s New Mexico ranches in 2006. Phases two and three are far more ambitious: establishing cheetahs, elephants, and lions on private property, then importing elephants and large carnivores to “ecological history parks” on the Great Plains. Not surprisingly, logistical obstacles like federal and local approval are daunting, and public opinion runs the gamut. “I’ve had people tell me, ‘I’ll quit my corporate job and come work for you,’ ” says Donlan. “And others say, ‘If I see a free-range elephant on this continent, it’ll get an ass full of buckshot, and I’ll kill you, too.’ “

Cheryl Rogowski: Organic Genius

MISSION // REVIVE THE FAMILY FARM

FOR A HALLOWEEN party last year, Cheryl Rogowski got dudded up as Einstein. It was a fitting look for the 2004 recipient of a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation “genius” award. Rogowski, however, is no lab geek—she’s far happier talking apples than atoms. A fourth-generation farmer-cum-agricultural-activist in Pine Island, New York, Rogowski, 44, earned the award for proving that small farms can survive by selling exotic produce to urban consumers with fat wallets and organic sensibilities. The breakthrough idea transformed her family’s 150-acre vegetable farm into an expanding natural-foods empire. “Diversification is the only way we could survive,” says Rogowski. In 1999, she incubated her theories on three acres, planting 15 types of chile and dealing them to New York City’s foodies via community delivery services. The concept took off. She now grows some 250 types of produce. Last year, Rogowski took over the farm and, with money from the MacArthur prize, launched a food label, Black Dirt Gourmet. She’s also begun negotiating a distribution deal with organic-minded supermarket Whole Foods. “We now have the freedom to choose who we sell to, how we sell, and how we grow,” she says. Exactly the way it should be.

Bertrand Piccard: Capt. Sun

MISSION // PILOT A SOLAR PLANE

IN 1999, WHILE DOING THE OBLIGATORY PR prior to his circumnavigation of the earth by hot-air balloon, 47-year-old Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard was struck with a radical notion: “I had this idea that the purest way to fly would be with no fuel, no pollution.” Thus began the planning for the Solar Impulse, a plane he hopes will make the first sun-powered round-the-world flight.

It’s an audacious undertaking, considering that the most recent solar aviation milestone was a 48-hour sortie by a radio-controlled craft this past June. To pull it off, he’ll need an extraordinarily efficient plane and a roller-coaster-like flight plan. The single-cockpit, 260-foot-wingspan Solar Impulse, constructed of ultralight carbon fiber, will spend its days climbing to 40,000 feet, then, surviving on 880 pounds of batteries, make slow nocturnal descents to 15,000 feet, just above the cloud layer—any lower and an overcast morning could force a crash landing.

Piccard, whose father took a submersible to the bottom of the Pacific, in 1960, has already raised $15.5 million for the concept. His timeline calls for test flights in 2008, a transcontinental run in 2009, then the four-leg roundabout—with Piccard and two other pilots switching off—in 2010. While the adventure alone is worth the effort, Piccard has a grander vision. “A solar circumnavigation sends a very important message,” he says. “It’s a beautiful symbol for renewable energy and the pioneering spirit of invention.”

John Shroder: Glacier Watchdog

MISSION // ESCAPE THE FLOOD

AFTER 45 YEARS OF TEACHING, most tenured academics are thinking about going fishing. But Shroder, 66, a geography and geology prof at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is too nervous to slow down. Since 1983, the rock maven has led nearly 20 scientific expeditions to the Himalayas. His frightening discovery? Thousands of the region’s people are living under the threat of imminent global-warming-triggered floods. The danger is caused by “debuttressing,” a process in which rising temperatures cause glaciers propping up near-vertical rock walls to melt until the walls collapse. The resulting domino effect can be lethal: Rockslides dam runoff, forming lakes that swell until they burst and unleash floods on communities downstream. To thwart such disasters, Shroder has set up a warning center in Omaha, where he studies satellite images and alerts Himalayan authorities to coming floods. He’s also coordinating the first workshop between Indian and Pakistani geoscientists. In July, Shroder saw the scenario unfolding near Pakistan’s 28,250-foot K2, where a glacial lake had begun to leak. He says, “Now we’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Andrea Fischer: Ice Eccentric

MISSION // INSULATE THE ALPS

THESE ARE tough times for Austrian skiers. Their stranglehold on the overall World Cup title was broken last year by the U.S. Ski Team’s Bode Miller, and glaciologists estimate that within 100 years 90 percent of the Alps’ roughly 4,600 small glaciers, which underlie some mountain resorts, will be gone. Enter Andrea Fischer, a glaciologist at the University of Innsbruck and leader of a project that’s putting the melt under wraps—literally. In 2004, with $435,000 in funding from the government and four ski areas, Fischer’s team began covering sections of resorts in the Tyrolean Alps with a one-to-three-millimeter-thick white, fleecelike material. Their conclusion? It works, at least temporarily. On one test plot, the insulation preserved almost five feet of snow, a result that gives Austrian schussers some much-needed hope. “We cannot stop the melting,” says Fischer, “but we can slow it down.” If only they could do the same to Bode.

Jack Shea: Field Educator

MISSION // GREEN THE KIDS

“EDUCATION WITH NO CHILD LEFT INSIDE.” That’s how Journeys School executive director Jack Shea, 54, describes the Jackson, Wyoming–based pre-K–12 program, which combines traditional subjects with environmental projects to nurture a new generation of eco-conscious kids. Under Shea’s leadership, Journeys—founded in 2001 as an offshoot of the Teton Science Schools—now has a new campus to match its green philosophy. The $23 million project, which wrapped in September, features recycled-tire carpeting, buildings sited to receive maximum solar radiation, and 880 acres of open space. The facility will act as a lab for the Teacher Learning Center, a residential program that trains educators from around the world in Journeys’ experiential curriculum. “Everyone likes to complain about education,” says Shea, “but we enjoy actually doing something about it.”

Olav Heyerdahl: Upstart Mariner

Olav Heyerdahl

RESPECT YOUR EDLERS: Heyerdahl aboard the legendary Kon-Tiki, in an Oslo museum.

MISSION // RAFT THE PACIFIC

IF YOUR GRANDFATHER is one of adventure’s most celebrated mavericks, taking any expedition is perilous for the ego. Such is the predicament of 28-year-old Oslo, Norway–based Olav Heyerdahl. In 1947, his grandpa Thor and five fellow Scandinavians drifted 4,300 miles, from Peru to Polynesia, on the balsa raft Kon-Tiki to prove that the South Pacific could have been settled by pre-Inca mariners. Academics dismissed the stunt, but the 101-day journey ignited a raucous popular debate about Polynesian history and catapulted the amateur anthropologist into the spotlight—exactly where Heyerdahl hopes to find himself next April, when he and five other explorers launch a bid to re-create the journey. What can we learn from the reenactment of a legend? A lot—as DAVID CASE discovered when he caught up with the aspiring mariner.

OUTSIDE: How will your journey differ from the Kon-Tiki expedition?

HEYERDAHL: For starters, we’ll build the raft my grandfather would have built if he was setting out today. We’re adding a system of centerboards that archaeologists now believe the ancient Peruvians used to steer, rather than float with the currents. We’re going to navigate to Tahiti—not just crash into a reef like the Kon-Tiki.

What will you do all day?
I’m the expedition diver, so I’ll be taking under-water photos, plus taking shifts steering and cooking. We’re going to gather data about marine organisms and currents. A slow-moving raft is like a mini coral reef—as barnacles colonize it, the fish come to feed, then come sharks, and so on. So we can really study the life up close and then compare our observations with my grandfather’s. Also, a fisheries biologist will take water samples. He’s researching drifting pollutants that are changing the sex of fish.

How will you get the word out?
We’ll be filming a documentary to alert people to the drastic changes over the last 50 years, both in the ocean and on land. The jungle where my grandfather got his wood for the raft has been overrun by a city of 130,000, and the river he used to float the logs to the Pacific has all but dried up.

So will you still use balsa wood?
Yes, but we’ll have to buy it from a plantation.

Isn’t it a bit flimsy for an ocean crossing?
Actually, it’s virtually indestructible. A fiberglass boat might sink if it gets a hole, but a balsa raft can lose two-thirds of its hull and stay afloat. The biggest threat is an attack by shipworms—they can eat the whole thing.

Six guys on a small raft for 100 days sounds rough.
We’re planning to have a quiet spot—a base where you can just sit there and shut up and no one will bother you.

Do you have any experience building rafts?
No, but it’s the same situation as my grandfather in 1947. At least I’m a carpenter.

Have you ever even been on one?
The Kon-Tiki, but only in a museum. It wasn’t very dangerous.

Lara Merriken: Raw Food Guru

Lara Merriken

MISSION // RAISE THE BAR

A FORMER CHIPS-AND-SODA DEVOTEE, Merriken found the path to enlightened eating when her University of Southern California volleyball coach laid down a no-sugar mandate. “I suddenly had consistent energy and more mental clarity,” recalls the 37-year-old Denver native. “No more of those crazy highs and lows.” In 2000, a decade after retiring her kneepads, Merriken, an avid runner and hiker, had her “Aha!” moment: Apply the same sugar-free strategy to energy bars by concocting an all-natural, raw-food snack with no baking, processing, or preservatives. Three years later—after countless hours whirring dried cherries, dates, cashews, and other raw nuts in her Cuisinart—she shipped her first batch of LäraBars to health-food stores in Colorado. They were an instant hit with endurance junkies looking for an organic, longer-lasting buzz: In less than two years, her company has become a $6 million business, with sales in all 50 states, Mexico, the UK, and Canada. Says Merriken, “Now I’m thinking about entirely new foods we can create with the same philosophy.”

David Gump: Space Pioneer

MISSION // BLAST OFF ON A BUDGET

“I READ A LOT OF SCIENCE FICTION when I was younger but had no intention of a career in space,” says David Gump, 55, the cofounder and CEO of Reston, Virginia–based Transformational Space Corporation, or t/Space. Today, the onetime railroad lobbyist is blazing a trail to the solar system with a low-cost plan to launch manned expeditions to the moon and Mars. His far-out proposition: a transportation chain that breaks the trip into stages. First, get astronauts into orbit—the most difficult part of any space voyage—with a reusable rocket-propelled capsule. Next, transfer to a parked spacecraft to make the haul to the moon or Mars.

By breaking from the one-ship model, Gump’s strategy makes for a highly efficient R&D process—and saves a bundle. This past spring, his team unveiled a mock-up of their reusable crew-transfer vehicle, the CXV, which can carry four astronauts into orbit for a paltry $20 million per flight (a shuttle flight typically tops $1 billion). Starting in May, he ran a 23-percent-scale prototype through a partial test of the first stage of the launch sequence. (On an actual mission, a jet would release the CXV at 50,000 feet and rockets would then blast the vehicle into orbit.)

Though t/Space now needs to raise $400 million (likely in the form of a NASA contract) to complete a space-ready CXV, Gump is already one giant leap closer to his goal, having demonstrated the potential to get into orbit without breaking the bank. “Once you get off the planet,” he notes, “you’re halfway to anywhere in the solar system.”

Dan Buettner: Interactive Explorer

MISSION // LIVE FOREVER

HE’s BIKED MORE THAN 120,000 MILES around the globe and is considered the father of the interactive expedition, but Dan Buettner may be on the verge of his greatest feat to date: unlocking the secret to long life. In 1992, Buettner and three other cyclists pedaled across the Sahara to the southern tip of Africa to promote racial awareness—posting their travels on Mosaic, an early Internet browser. The St. Paul, Minnesota–based Buettner, 45, has since launched 12 real-time expeditions designed to enlist Web users to help solve some of science’s biggest questions. For his latest Quest (), he has narrowed down the globe’s “blue zones”—hot spots of human longevity—and is working with top demographers and physicians to study diet and lifestyle and create a blueprint for living longer. First stop: Okinawa, Japan, followed by mountain villages on an as-yet-undisclosed island in the Mediterranean. “We know that there’s a recipe for longevity, and that 75 percent of it is related to lifestyle,” he says. “And we’re figuring it out.”

Fabien Cousteau: Underwater Auteur

Fabien Cousteau

DIVE MASTER: Cousteau on board at New York City’s Dyckman Marina.

MISSION // SAVE THE SEAS

FABIEN COUSTEAU IS SUNBURNED. It’s a sultry August evening in Key Largo, Florida, and the 38-year-old grandson of history’s preeminent undersea explorer arrives late for dinner, having just wrapped up a 13-hour day filming coral spawning. He walks across the parking lot of the Italian bistro and extends his hand to shake mine. His wispy brown hair is flecked with gray, a striking contrast to his crimson face. “I’m Fabien,” he says. “I’ll be right back.” With that, he darts across the blacktop highway in his flip-flops and into a CVS pharmacy. Five minutes later, he returns clutching a jumbo bottle of aloe vera gel.

So it goes for Fabien, a skilled underwater filmmaker with ambitious plans for the First Family of the Deep. After about 12 years of career roaming—freelancing as a graphic designer and marketing eco-friendly products for Burlington, Vermont–based Seventh Generation—he’s looking to breathe new life into his clan’s once pacesetting documentary juggernaut and shake up a public that he believes is inured to the rapidly declining health of the world’s oceans. His strategy: Ditch the classic Cousteau marathon approach to filmmaking in favor of fast-moving production teams that can deftly churn out television specials defined by modern visual fireworks and high-paced editing.

If he can shake off his land legs—SPF 40, anybody?—he’s well suited to the challenge. Fabien, who was raised in the States, took his first plunge with a scuba tank at four and began joining family filming expeditions aboard the Calypso at seven. In his teen years he regularly pitched in with documentary crews working for his father, Jacques’s oldest son, Jean-Michel, and his grandfather. But while coming of age in flippers infused him with a profound connection to the sea, adulthood brought with it a craving to venture beyond his family ties. “After college, I went through a rebellious phase and thought I would do something different,” says Fabien. This led him into a spate of business courses, the gig with Seventh Generation, and treks in Nepal and Africa.

His rediscovered commitment to the family legacy grew out of a gnawing sense of responsibility to the seascapes that were once his playgrounds. “I feel an urgency that maybe my grandfather didn’t until his later years,” he says, “to explore faster and faster before the oceans are destroyed so you can then relay the message to the general public and they can influence what’s happening.”

Though his surname provides a leg up in any film project, Fabien faces a ruthless broadcast landscape Jacques Cousteau never could have imagined. “When Jacques was on television, there were fewer than ten channels,” points out Jean-Michel, 67. “In the 1970s, we’d have 35 million Americans watching all at once on ABC. That’s unthinkable today, unless it’s the Super Bowl.”

Fabien also has to contend with a fractured Cousteau dynasty. In 1990, shortly after Jacques’s first wife died, the 79-year-old patriarch confessed to a long affair with Francine Triplet, a Frenchwoman 40 years his junior. Jacques married her a year later, and Jean-Michel was swept aside as his stepmother took over his duties within the Cousteau Society. After Jacques died, in 1997, Francine was named president of the Society, which owns all commercial rights to the Cousteau name and his work; Jean-Michel agreed not to use “Cousteau” to promote his own ventures unless he directly precedes it with “Jean-Michel.” And while he’s released more than 70 of his own blue-chip TV documentaries, he’s never attained Jacques’s megastardom—a fact that’s left the next-generation Cousteaus lingering backstage.

All this means that Fabien is going to have to succeed on his own passions and talent. It does appear that he has plenty of both. His emergence began in 2000, when he joined Jean-Michel on a filming expedition to South Africa. Two years later, National Geographic hired him to host a special on the legendary 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks. This fall, Fabien completed his first self-produced project, Mind of a Demon, which debunks the notion that great white sharks are ruthless killing machines with a taste for humans. He enlisted Hollywood inventor Eddie Paul to build a 14.5-foot submarine that looks and swims like a great white. Dubbed Troy, it allowed Fabien to capture never-before-seen footage of the predators dueling for territory off Mexico’s Pacific coast. Despite a budget of only $650,000, the one-hour film premiered on CBS in November—the first network airing of a Cousteau documentary in more than a decade.

He’ll be onscreen again next spring in Ocean ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs, Jean-Michel’s new six-hour PBS series, which mixes celebration of undersea beauty with reporting on the plight of marine ecosystems. Fabien plays a starring role in the final two-hour episode, which explores America’s national marine sanctuaries. The series also unites him for the first time on television with both his 33-year-old sister, Céline, and Jean-Michel; KQED Public Broadcasting in San Francisco, the project’s co-producer, has dubbed it “the return of the Cousteaus.” Fans drawn by that pitch might be surprised by the thumping soundtrack and reality-TV format, with crew members and sea critters getting equal camera time—a result, to some degree, of Fabien’s preproduction suggestions and editing-room tinkering.

Blending environmental gospel with pop entertainment is tricky business, but Fabien argues that it’s essential to jump-start ocean conservation in an era of 400 cable channels and Desperate Housewives. And if you’re going to lure people into caring about the undersea world, it helps to roll out its biggest stars, which is why he’s planning documentaries on blue whales and the giant squid. “The Cousteaus have always been a voice for the sea,” he says. “This is what I’ve inherited: the responsibility of exploring and protecting the oceans.”

Jeb Corliss and Maria von Egidy: Wing People

MISSION // FLY LIKE A BIRD

THE RACE TO BE THE FIRST to jump out of a plane and land safely without deploying a parachute is on. That’s the goal of Malibu-based Jeb Corliss, 29, and South African Maria von Egidy, 41, who, working separately and in secret, say they’ve found a way for humans to leap from 30,000 feet and live—wearing flying-squirrel-like wingsuits that slow free fall to less than 40 miles per hour while propelling you forward at more than 100 miles per hour. This can make for a rough landing, but BASE jumper Corliss claims to have invented a touchdown strategy that “can be done ten times out of ten without breaking a fingernail.” Meanwhile, von Egidy, a former costume designer, says she’s within a year and $400,000 of skydiving’s ultimate prize; now all she needs is a willing test pilot. “Obviously,” she says, “it will have to be someone very brave.”

Robert Kunz: New-Wave Nutritionist

Robert Kunz

MISSION // LAST LONGER

AFTER A DECADE in the endurance-supplement industry, Charlottes-ville, Virginia–based nutritionist Robert Kunz, 36, was fed up with taking directions from boards made up of doughy scientists and following a market-based approach to development, which begins with a price point and ends with a mediocre powder or pill. So in 2002 he launched First Endurance with a revolutionary mandate: Create supplements conjured exclusively by endurance athletes—and ignore the cost. An amateur triathlete, Kunz staffed the company—from the lab geeks to the legal counsel—with fitness junkies, then asked for their biggest ideas. The subsequent brainstorms have produced supplements that deliver on their promise, thanks to clinically proven dosages of endurance-boosting ingredients. Their inaugural Optygen, composed of herbs and fungi that speed recovery, costs $50 for a month’s supply—$10 more than competitors—yet boasts a 99 percent repeat-customer rate. “We know athletes,” says Kunz. “We had a good idea this would work.”

Colin Angus: Epic Addict

MISSION // CIRCLE THE EARTH

IF YOU’RE LOOKIGN TO AMP UP INTEREST in alternative transportation, there are plenty of strategies easier than attempting the first human-powered lap of the planet. Canadian explorer COLIN ANGUS, 34, is aware of this, but he also knows that it might take a remarkable statement to inspire people to reconsider their lifestyles. This recent dispatch sure had us thinking twice about our morning commutes.

FROM: COLINANGUS // TO: OUTSIDEMAG // SUBJECT: EXPEDITION PLANET EARTH // DATE: SEPTEMBER 21, 2005 5:55:18 AM EDT

My travel partner and fiancée, Julie Wafaei, and I have just reached Lisbon, Portugal. Time is tight; tomorrow morning, we trade our bikes for a rowboat to commence a 5,200-mile, four-month row across the Atlantic. We’re actually looking forward to relaxing in the boat some, as I’m feeling a little tired.

Circling the globe on human power really drives home just how big this planet is and how important it is to reduce greenhouse emissions. My expedition began June 1, 2004, from Vancouver. Since then, traveling with several different partners, I’ve cycled and canoed through Canada and Alaska, rowed the Bering Sea, and trekked, skied, and biked 14,000 miles across Eurasia. In Siberia, I got separated from my former teammate, Tim Harvey, and spent the night in a snow cave; outside it was 49 below zero with 40-mile-per-hour winds.

Now as I look out at the empty blue sea separating Europe and North America, the world is looking even bigger.
Cheers, Colin

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Kerry Black: Wave Maker

MISSION // SURF INDOORS

WITH A LEGENDARY point break off his home in Raglan, New Zealand, Kerry Black has little need for artificial waves. But the 54-year-old Ph.D. oceanographer, who’s spent more than 20 years computerizing wave mechanics, is creating a wave pool that could be the biggest development in surfing since the wetsuit. Scheduled for completion in Orlando, Florida, as early as next summer, the Ron Jon Surfpark promises to pump out peaks with the power and shape of natural waves—a major achievement, considering that the hundreds of current wave pools deliver mushy rollers. Black’s design has compressed air forcing thousands of gallons of salt water down a 300-foot-long basin with converging sidewalls, which preserve the wave’s height (up to eight feet), while steel triangles on the bottom can be adjusted to mimic the reefs under 40 of the world’s great breaks. New Jersey–based Surfparks, which licensed the concept, has raised $10 million for the park, while some 4,000 surfers stoked for predictable swells are on a waiting list for annual memberships (up to $2,400). “Surfers will still travel to waves around the world,” says Black, “but I reckon the future of the sport is twice as big now.”

New York City Fire Dept.: Escape Artists

MISSION // STOP, DROP, AND RAPPEL

“THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF YOUR LIFE,” says New York City firefighter Bill Duffy, 40, describing the jump-or-die scenario that inspired a revolutionary new escape device that’s set to become standard issue for Gotham’s hook-and-ladder heroes. “It’s get out the window as fast as you can.” Last January, Duffy was part of a team of FDNYers-cum-designers who set out to make a lightweight system to enable an emergency exit from almost any window. Borrowing a few rock-climbing tricks, the Batbelt-like units, which pack into a bag on a firefighter’s hip, feature a nylon harness, 50 feet of flame-resistant rope, a descender, and a single sharpened hook based on a prototype forged in the FDNY shop. Surrounded by flames, a fireman can slip the hook around a pipe, or jam its point into any solid surface, then roll headfirst out a window. The descender, a modified version of the Petzl Grigri, catches when weight hits the rope, allowing a controlled descent. The city is spending $11 million for 11,500 kits and training, which began in October, but, says Duffy, “hopefully, they won’t ever get used.”

Pat Goodman: Aerial Innovator

MISSION // CRACK OPEN KITEBOARDING

GOODMAN, CHIEF DESIGNER at Maui-based kiteboard manufacturer Cabrinha, was determined to help beginners master the sport’s toughest skills: staying in control during big gusts and relaunching after wipeouts. This past July the 49-year-old unveiled the Crossbow system, which may do for kiteboarding what parabolics did for downhill skiing. The Crossbow pairs a nearly flat kite—more akin to a plane wing than to its U-shaped predecessors—with a rigging that dramatically boosts power and control: Nudge the steering bar outward to slam on the brakes. Tug on a rear line after a fall and the kite fires aloft like a rocket. “I wanted to be able to get my ten-year-old daughter into the sport,” says Goodman. “Now I can—if she’d just stop windsurfing.”

Hazel Barton: Medicine Hunter

MISSION // CAVE FOR THE CURE

SHE MAY SEEM AN UNLIKELY SAVIOR—with a map of a South Dakota cave tattooed on one biceps, a well-behaved women rarely make history bumper sticker on her truck, and a starring role in the 2001 Imax film Journey into Amazing Caves. But Barton, a 34-year-old Northern Kentucky University biology professor, is one of the best hopes for finding new antibiotics that could potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives each year. And she’s searching underground. While the de facto scientific opinion holds that caves are microbiologically barren, Barton’s research, conducted from Central America to Appalachia, has proven otherwise: Most are teeming with microorganisms armed with antibiotic weapons. To harvest them, Barton—who was born and raised in Britain—squirms through shoulder-wide passageways and rappels several stories into black pits, armed with a stash of microprobes, test tubes, and cotton swabs. Back in the lab, it may take months to extract the antibiotic agents, then years longer before effective drugs can be developed. But fortunately Barton—who’s now scouting a secret cave in Kentucky for an antibiotic to knock out a nasty drug-resistant, tissue-dissolving strain of the common staph infection—is in it for the long haul. “Population control should be done through education and policy, not human suffering,” she says. “As long as tools are available to reduce that suffering, I’ll try to find them.”

Alan Darlington: Clean-Air Engineer

MISSION // BREATHE EASIER

THE BAD NEWS: ACCORDING TO EPA estimates, indoor air can be five times more polluted than the air outside—and Americans spend an average of 90 percent of their time inside. The good news: Filters made from plants—which host toxin-digesting microbes—can help create purer air. Canadian biologist Alan Darlington, 46, helped come up with the idea in 1994, at Ontario’s University of Guelph, while researching air-filtration strategies for the Canadian and European space agencies. Nine years later, he built his first commercial biowall—a polyester-mesh structure embedded with plants like orchids and bromeliads—which reduces some pollutants by as much as 95 percent. Now Darlington’s company, Guelph–based Air Quality Solutions, has manufactured eight 32-to-1,500-square-foot walls in Canada and installed the first U.S. wall at Biohabitats, an environmental-restoration firm in Baltimore, this past September. What’s next? Biowalls small enough for private homes, which Darlington hopes to unveil in 2007.

Richard Jenkins: Speed Demon

MISSION // RIDE THE WIND

IF RICHARD JENKINS were a betting man, his trifecta would be 116, 143, 56. Those are the respective wind-powered land, ice, and water mile-per-hour speed records the 29-year-old Brit is on the verge of breaking. For the past five years, Jenkins, a mechanical engineer and amateur glider pilot, has built three crafts—on wheels, skates, and hydrofoils—equipped with rigid carbon-fiber sails. The sails, which can tack 35 degrees to either side, act like vertical airplane wings, providing forward motion instead of lift. They offer minimal acceleration in low winds but a serious speed boost in gusts over 50 miles per hour. The land craft unofficially broke records during testing in the UK in 2002, hitting 125 miles per hour, and Jenkins is planning another run at a dry lake bed in Nevada. This winter, he’ll sail his ice vehicle on frozen lakes in Wisconsin in a bid for the 67-year-old record. But beating a dozen competitors out for the water title may be his most daunting challenge. “If I thought my chances were marginal,” says Jenkins, “I wouldn’t be here. I’m just waiting for that one windy day.”

Olaf Malver: Intrepid ºÚÁϳԹÏÍør

MISSION // GET LOST

“WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL WE’RE DOING, so let’s go! Let’s find out what we’re doing!” So says 52-year-old Danish explorer Olaf Malver, of the philosophy behind Explorers’ Corner, his Berkeley, California–based travel company, which guides clients on adventure explorations around the world, from paddling in tropical Indochina to trekking in the Republic of Georgia. While larger outfitters might offer one untested itinerary a year, Malver—a 24-year adventure-industry veteran who speaks six languages and holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and a master’s in law and diplomacy—is convinced that his seat-of-the-pants approach is what travelers now crave. “We’re sharing the exploration with co-explorers, not just dragging them around,” he says. “We don’t cater. We demand involvement. Plus we’ve already told them that we don’t know what we’re doing, so when we get into trouble, they take it with a smile.”

Al Gore: Media Tycoon

MISSION // DEMOCRATIZE TV

AL GORE APPEARED TO BE ON LIFE SUPPORT after his failed 2000 presidential bid: He bounced between jobs teaching journalism and a few fiery speeches before vanishing from the public eye. Now the 57-year-old ex-veep is back, resurrected as the visionary and chairman of San Francisco–based Current TV, a four-month-old cable network that depends on viewer-created content for more than a quarter of its programming. “Current enables viewers to short-circuit the ivory tower and provide the news to each other,” says David Neuman, president of programming. “It’s revolutionary.” Like an on-air blog, Current encourages aspiring Stacy Peraltas armed with digital camcorders and PowerMacs to shoot and edit short videos; then visitors to the network’s Web site vote on what gets aired. Some, like “Jumper,” a fast-paced homage to BASE jumping that mixes helmet-cam footage and interviews with an amped-up soundtrack, are cool; others are predictably awful. It’s a bold idea for the notoriously unhip Gore, but Al (as he’s known around the office, where he has been heard inquiring about the network’s “street cred”) has brought to Current more than an A-list name and access to deep pockets. “He wants to democratize television,” says Neuman. And, in the process, he just may recast himself.

Julie Bargmann: Landscape Survivor

MISSION // RESURRECT THE WASTELANDS

AS ONE OF THE LEADING landscape architects specializing in revitalizing toxic Superfund sites and derelict brownfields, Julie Bargmann is a sort of fairy godmother of industrial wastelands. “Most remediation projects are just lipstick on a pig,” she says. “They truck the dirt to New Jersey and slap a parking lot over the site.” Which is why the 47-year-old started D.I.R.T. (Design Investigations Reclaiming Terrain) Studio, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Bargmann seeks out nasty places from Israel to Alaska, hires scientists to pitch in with the eco-cleanup, and transforms blight into beauty. Results so far include the makeover of a basalt quarry into a thriving vineyard and wildlife habitat in Sonoma County, California. “Postindustrial landscapes are bound to become central to many of our communities,” says Bargmann, “and reclaiming these derelict sites is a way to contribute to communities and the environment.”

Daniel Emmett: Hydrogen Hero

MISSION // FUEL AN ENERGY REVOLUTION

IT’S THE LIGHTEST, MOST ABUNDANT ELEMENT IN THE UNIVERSE, can be derived from a stalk of celery or a lump of coal, is twice as efficient as gasoline, and has only two by-products: water vapor and heat. No wonder hydrogen is the next big thing in alternative fuels—and car-crazed California is its testing ground. Leading the charge is Daniel Emmett, 36-year-old cofounder of the Santa Barbara–based nonprofit Energy Independence Now. In 2001 Emmett partnered with green politico Terry Tamminen to create a network of hydrogen-fuel stations along California’s 45,000 miles of roadway. They pitched the idea to anyone willing to listen; in 2004 Governor Schwarzenegger pledged support, ponying up $6.5 million in state funding in 2005. Now there are 17 hydrogen stations across the state, and Emmett is pushing for a total of 100 by 2010 as part of a larger effort to reduce petroleum dependency and cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 percent. It’s a tall order: There are currently only 70 hydrogen test vehicles on California roads (though the major auto manufacturers are racing to develop new fuel-cell technologies), and Emmett estimates he’ll need another $54 million. But the hydrogen revolution has to start somewhere. “If we don’t do something today,” says Emmett, “it’ll always be 30 or 40 years off.”

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A German-Iraqi who supports the U.S.-led war, a Muslim sponsored by a brewery, an elite athlete who trains without a coach: Faris Al-Sultan defies easy categorization. But there’s one label the 27-year-old triathlete may soon wear proudly: world champion—he is a strong favorite to win at the October 15 Ironman World Championship, in Kona, Hawaii.

The son of an Iraqi father—a chemist who settled in Germany after traveling there for his Ph.D.—and a German mother, Al-Sultan was raised in Munich. But despite widespread German opposition to the war in Iraq, he was in favor of the invasion, saying that Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship had prevented him from ever visiting his father’s homeland. And while he embraces his Islamic roots, he also describes himself as “a normal German guy,” one who can enjoy the fruits of his sponsorship deal with the Bavarian brewery Erdinger. “Nothing for the water bottle,” he says, “just for after the race.”

If all goes according to plan, Al-Sultan will have a lot to celebrate post-race in Kona. He finished a close third there last year and is coming off a dominating win at April’s Ironman Arizona. “Faris clearly has the fearless attitude and physical conditioning necessary to be in the thick of the race,” says six-time Ironman Hawaii winner Mark Allen.

Although he is one of the only athletes in the world capable of winning the overall in Kona, Al-Sultan refuses to let the sport consume him. He balances his workouts—up to 450 miles of cycling, 50 miles of running, and nine miles of swimming per week—with studies toward a master’s in Arabic language, literature, and history at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University. He also spends two months a year in the United Arab Emirates, training in temperatures up to 115 degrees. That should help in Kona’s notorious lava fields, but Al-Sultan is reluctant to handicap his chances. “The world keeps going its way, whether I win or lose,” he says. “It’s just a sport, and I can’t get crazy about it.”

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Plenty of people rocked our world this year—like resilient shark-attack survivor Bethany Hamilton, Olympic supa-swimma Michael Phelps, valiant Iraq war photographer Chris Anderson, and (of course) Lance, with his butt-whompingest Tour win yet. Meet the top 25 picks in our roundup of adventure heroes who stand a cut above.

Laird Hamilton

Laird Hamilton

Misty May & Kerri Walsh

Solid-Gold Spikers

Despite the anything-can-happen aura surrounding this summer’s Olympic Games, certain outcomes seemed inevitable: There would be drama and tears in the gymnastics competition, archery would not make prime time, and the American women would win beach volleyball gold. Of course, it’s easy to achieve world dominance on the sand if you are the formidable twosome of Misty May—a five-foot-nine, 150-pound 27-year-old with coils for legs—and Kerri Walsh, 26, whose six-foot-two, 155-pound beanstalk body lets her cover every inch of the net and court. It’s not surprising that both women are blessed with Athena-given genes—May’s mother was a nationally ranked tennis player, while Walsh’s mom was voted MVP on her college volleyball team at Santa Clara University—and both were college superstars in their own right. At Long Beach State, L.A. native May led her team to a 36–0 record and the 1998 NCAA championship, while Walsh, a native of Santa Clara, California, racked up four All-American honors and two consecutive NCAA championships at Stanford. The two paired up in 2001 and were ranked number one in the world by the end of the 2002 season, becoming the first American team to win the world championships, in 2003. Three years of playing solid ball together certainly paid off: The duo (who beat Brazilians Shelda Bede and Adriana Behar in the gold-medal round) didn’t drop a single game in Athens. “We played consistently and aggressively from the very first game,” says May. “I didn’t have any doubt we would win gold.”

Rush Sturges, Marlow Long, & Brooks Baldwin

Mad Auteurs

Judging from the footage in Young Gun Productions’ 2004 DVD New Reign, extreme kayaking has found its heirs apparent. The flick, 30-plus minutes of pure kayak porn, stars the trio and a cadre of their underage, overtalented pals running 70-foot waterfalls, cartwheeling through ten-foot standing waves, and raising hell on some of the world’s fiercest waterways, from Uganda’s White Nile to Canada’s Slave River. Set to rap and hip-hop, it forgoes narration for frame after frame of lemming-style plunges and teenage rowdiness. (In one scene, paddler Merlin Hanauer cranks the rental van through high-speed donuts in a Norway parking lot.) Talent and guts notwithstanding, the Young Guns’ irreverence and Hiltonesque reputation for partying haven’t gone over well with the sport’s veterans. “Don’t get me wrong—they go huge,” says Clay Wright, 37, a member of the U.S. Freestyle Kayak Team since 1995. “But they need to learn that people aren’t just watching them when they’re on the water.” Which, as it turns out, is most of the time: Long, 20, Baldwin, 20, and 19-year-old Sturges, the 2003 junior world freestyle champion, made their first movie, The Next Generation, in 2002 as students at the Vermont-based kayaking academy ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Quest. For their next offering, Dynasty, due out in late 2005, they’ll head to the Congo’s big water. “With a 15- or 20-foot wave,” says Sturges, “anything’s possible.”

Keir Dillon

Snowboarder

Keir Dillon

Keir Dillon

Keir Dillon couldn’t concentrate. It was the February 2004 World Superpipe Championship in Park City, Utah, and the pipe’s 18-foot walls were booming with the sound system’s house music and the noise of the raucous crowd. So he put on his earmuff-size Sony headphones, tuned in to the mellow vocals of a singer from his church, dropped in, and won gold. That same focus earned Dillon third-place finishes in both the X Games in January and the U.S. Open in March—a trifecta of podium appearances at the sport’s most renowned contests. In the pipe, Dillon, 27, is known best for his personalized McTwist—a 540-degree spinning front flip—and soaring amplitude. Off the snow, the Carlsbad, California–based boarder—who is married and sticks to a rigorous year-round training regimen in hopes of making the 2006 Olympic squad—is leading a new revolution of career-focused riders by being up front about who he is and what it takes to win. “You can’t be pro these days and be a complete derelict,” he says. “It’s about being dialed.”

Lauren Lee

Model Climber

“I don’t have the patience for sticking around climbs very long,” says 24-year-old boulderer Lauren Lee, “so I just send them [climb without falling] as quickly as possible.” In her case, impatience is a virtue. After less than two years of crag time, the five-foot-five, 110-pounder from Cincinnati was snagging first-place finishes at the 2001 American Bouldering Series and the Subaru Gorge Games. In 2002, she finished second to France’s Myriam Matteau at the Bouldering World Cup in Rovereto, Italy, then went on to win the prestigious Phoenix Dyno competition in April 2003 and the Professional Climbing Association competition in Salt Lake City in January 2004. But just because Lee can rage on the rock doesn’t mean she’s a dirtbag climber: A model for gearmakers Five Ten, Prana, and BlueWater, Lee has been known to compete in a skirt. True to form, she’s throwing herself headlong into the next step: sport climbing. In July, Lee put up the fastest female ascent on Dumpster BBQ, a notoriously difficult 5.13c pitch outside Rifle, Colorado. And in September, she became the youngest American woman, and third overall, to send a 5.13d. “It’s one thing to be strong, but it’s another to know how to move on the rock,” says World Cup climber Chris Sharma, 23. “Lauren has both. She’s got huge potential.”

Stewart+Brown

Eco-Fashionistas

Stewart+Brown

Stewart+Brown

At long last, the human species has evolved to the point where we can grasp the concept that earth-friendly fashions need not stop at hemp. This is due in no small part to Stewart+Brown, the Ventura, California–based green-produced, downtown-inspired apparel company created in 2002 by the husband-and-wife team of designer Karen Stewart, 35, and brand guru Howard Brown, 37, alumni of Patagonia and Urban Outfitters, respectively. “You know the Dr. Seuss book The Lorax? ‘I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees!'” says Brown, by way of explaining their mission. “We want to mix environmental consciousness with good, cool design.” Toward that end, Stewart+Brown gives 1 percent of its gross profit to environmental causes. All of their cotton products are 100 percent organic; the cashmere comes from a fledgling Mongolian cashmere co-op run by herders who process the woolly stuff themselves; their Surp+ tote bags are stitched from leftover ripstop nylon and the remnants of fly-fishing waders; and their fleece is Stewart’s own invention, a proprietary blend of organic cotton, polyester, and spandex. They’d intended to take their new line slowly, conceiving the company while raising their two-year-old daughter, Hazel. But when the zeitgeist calls, you have to answer, particularly when those calls are for cashmere and they’re coming from national franchises like Anthropologie, trendsetting boutiques like Butter, in Brooklyn, and celebs like Cameron Diaz and Liv Tyler (who ordered their infant line: cashmere baby blanket, hat, and neckie). While tastemakers swoon—”Oooh, the hats!” cries Organic Style‘s Danny Seo—Stewart and Brown are planning to expand, and scrambling to keep up with existing sales. “Did you hear that sigh?” says Brown. “I just spent six straight weeks packing boxes, and people are already placing reorders. Stores are selling out.”

Alexander Fyfe

Soccer Captain

While the Iraqi National Soccer Team was gearing up for its knockout performance at the 2004 Summer Olympics, U.S. Army captain Alexander Fyfe was helping the country’s next generation of athletes sharpen their dribbling skills. Fyfe, a civil-affairs officer with the Fort Lewis, Washington–based 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, was stationed in Mosul, Iraq, last February when he noticed some local kids playing with a makeshift ball made of straw. The 26-year-old West Point grad—a standout midfielder as a teenager in Rocky Point, New York—e-mailed his high school coach, Al Ellis, and asked him to ship over a few balls. Ellis broadcast the request over the Internet, and soon Fyfe had received $25,000 worth of jerseys, balls, and other soccer equipment from the United States and Japan, which he helped distribute to children throughout northern Iraq. Though his is a goodwill mission, Fyfe still has to watch his back: In June, while on a delivery run to schools near the town of Qara Qosh, his convoy was ambushed by anti-American insurgents. The soldiers escaped harm, but the incident rattled Fyfe, who hopes to end his tour of duty by year’s end and return home to the Northwest for a winter of hiking and skiing. “This soccer project is one of hundreds of good news stories happening here every day,” he insists. “I’ll leave Iraq knowing that I played a small part in a very big production.” Whatever the outcome in Iraq, it’s hard to contest the rightness of kids playing sports outside.

Joe Don Morton

Smoke Jumper

The wildfire outside the Alaskan town of Arctic Village was small, maybe only five acres, when veteran firefighter Joe Don Morton hurled himself from the belly of a Casa 212 aircraft on June 22, 2004. Even 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, in the sparsely vegetated foothills of the Brooks Range, it took eight men and two CL-215 tanker planes three days to douse the blaze. Morton, 34, is a veteran Alaska Smokejumper, one of 68 elite firefighters who serve as the Last Frontier’s first line of defense against wildfires, parachuting into the backcountry as soon as flames are spotted. Smoke jumpers are a burly breed, but in Alaska—where 99 percent of the state is wild and roadless backcountry—the job redefines hardcore. “When I heard about guys throwing themselves into the middle of burning, untamed wilderness 500 miles from the nearest road,” says Morton, a former Navy search-and-rescue swimmer who got his start fighting fires in Arizona, “I knew it was my calling.” Good thing, because 2004 was Alaska’s worst fire season on record, with 680 separate blazes charring nearly 6.5 million acres across the state, including the headline-grabbing Boundary Fire, which scorched 537,000 acres of the White Mountains National Recreation Area and threatened suburban Fairbanks in June. “It looked like a war zone,” says Morton, who made nine jumps between May and late September, often hauling up to 110 pounds of gear (including a Kevlar jumpsuit, hard hat, ax, and chainsaw) to clear terrain just ahead of the flames. “The large fires kept our guys out there a long time,” says base manager Dalan Romero. “They were a challenge to everyone’s endurance.”

Lance Armstrong

The Boss

More Lance? Yeah, more Lance. Because a cyclist now ranks alongside transcendent, single-name icons like Pelé and Jordan. Because, as a 32-year-old cancer survivor, he accomplished something after cancer—six Tour de France victories—that no one else has managed in an entire career. Because here’s how he described this summer’s 2,110-mile battle for his record-setting yellow jersey: “It’s as if I was with my five friends and we were 13 years old and we all had new bikes and we said, ‘OK, we’re going to race from here to there.'” Because rather than quit now, he is out there training, getting ready to unleash another season of hurt on the competition. Because he stamped LIVESTRONG on a yellow rubber band, sold it for a buck, and has generated upwards of $13 million for his cancer foundation. Because his rock-star girlfriend lives in L.A., and his career is based in Europe, but he insists on training in Texas so he can be closer to his kids. Because his cameo was the best part of Dodgeball. Because no matter how much is written about him, the next time he races, you’ll watch.

Bethany Hamilton

Surfer

Bethany Hamilton

Bethany Hamilton

“Then it happened,” writes 14-year-old Bethany Hamilton in her new book, Soul Surfer. “A wave rolled through, I caught it, put my hand on the deck to push up, and I was standing. I guess I started getting the technique wired after that.” Let us be the first to say that this is a massive understatement. Last January, ten weeks after losing her left arm in a grisly shark attack that made international headlines, Hamilton rode a six-foot wave on her six-foot-two-inch surfboard and placed fifth in her age group in a National Scholastic Surfing Association meet in Hawaii. In August she won the women’s open division of an NSSA Hawaii conference contest, outsurfing the reigning champ, 12-year-old Carissa Moore. How is this possible? Hamilton credits her family (her parents, Cheri and Tom, and two brothers, Noah and Timmy, all surf), supporters in her hometown of Princeville, Kauai, her strong faith, and her unwavering mission to turn pro. In addition to physical therapy, her daily workouts include beach sprints, crunches, stretches, and balance work. She also surfs three times a day on Kauai’s best breaks, fine-tuning her technique with help from surf-training legend Ben Aipa, 63, who has coached Kelly Slater and Sonny Garcia. Though she wears a prosthetic on land, she rides the waves without one: paddling with her right arm, kicking hard, planting her body in the middle of the board, standing up, and then dropping in. “For most of us, surfing with two arms is hard enough,” says Sunshine Makarow, publisher of Surf Life for Women. “But Bethany’s still out there surfing competitively, and she can rip!”

Justin Carven

Guru of Grease

No doubt you’ve been hearing the buzz about biodiesel. A chemically processed mixture of vegetable oil, methanol, and lye, usually blended with other diesel fuels, it sells for about the same price as unleaded gas, with fewer greenhouse-gas emissions and up to 40 percent better mileage. But 27-year-old Justin Carven, of Florence, Massachusetts, has come up with a smarter, cheaper way to drive greener. Carven’s Greasecar Vegetable Fuel System modifies any diesel engine to run on pure recycled cooking oil—cleaner and more fuel-efficient than biodiesel and free at Chinese restaurants and fast-food joints nationwide. Carven developed the Greasecar concept while studying mechanical design at Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts. His first real road test—a 2000 postgraduation trip from Cape Cod to California and back in a grease-powered VW Westfalia—drew so much attention that he soon began marketing easy-to-install Greasecar kits to the public. Carven and his staff of three (who produce all the components by hand in East Hampton, Massachusetts) report that 2004 sales are up 500 percent over last year, with 60 Greasecar kits, at $795 a pop, being ordered each month by a customer base that’s grown beyond the original dreadlocks-and-patchouli crowd. “I tried using biodiesel, but it was hard to find, and I figured why not go 100 percent?” says Mark Howard, an information-technology consultant in New Hampshire who installed a Greasecar system on his 1997 VW Passat last spring. “I estimate that I save $80 to $100 a month on gas.” Carven admits that vegetable oil is not the perfect replacement for gasoline—for one thing, lugging around vats of grease and filtering out the McNugget batter and other impurities can be a chore. But he thinks it’s a worthy alternative until another green fuel is developed. “It’s renewable, produced domestically, and not going to run out like fossil fuels,” he argues. “This stuff literally grows on trees.”

Danny Way

Big-Air Huckster

Danny Way

Danny Way

In the four-wheeled world of skateboarding, the name Danny Way has always been synonymous with big. That’s because, from the start of his pro skateboarding career, at age 14, Way has never stopped flying. The 30-year-old vert (a.k.a. halfpipe) skateboarder and father of two from Encinitas, California, made headlines in 1997 when he became the first skateboarder to jump from a helicopter onto a vert ramp—a move he aptly named the “bomb drop” and repeated two years later for MTV. In June 2003, Way set two back-to-back world records in a single jump at a mega–skate ramp in Temecula, California: First he landed a 75-foot-long backside 360 over a 40-foot gap, with the momentum carrying him into the vert pipe, where he soared to 23.5 feet of vertical. This August, he wowed audiences at the X Games in Los Angeles by breaking his own world record with a practice jump of 79 feet—and then going on to win the big-air ramp event. Needless to say, it can be messy work: In the past year, Way has received 25 stitches on his right elbow, ripped off all the skin on his stomach, and been knocked unconscious twice. But that’s nothing compared with his eight surgeries—six on his left knee alone—in the past ten years. Way is just as aggressive off the ramp. In 1995, he helped his brother, Damon, and friend Ken Block start DC Shoes, a San Diego–based skateboarding-apparel company, which they sold to Quiksilver in March 2004 for $100 million. Now he has the windfall to develop his latest idea—a portable 90-foot-high, 300-foot-long ramp that, he hopes, will kick off a big-air world tour. “Trying something new can be rough,” Way admits, “but once you make it happen, the possibilities are endless.”

Becky Bristow

Expedition Kayaker

Just eight weeks after the U.S. State Department warned Americans off traveling to Iran this May, 27-year-old expedition kayaker Becky Bristow drove overland from Turkey with a team of paddlers from Britain and Argentina for a series of self-supported multi-day descents down Iran’s Class IV and V Bakhtiari, Zez, and Sezar rivers. As it turns out, pushy water was only half of the challenge: Reconciling river-rat culture with Islamic law came with its own set of hardships. Despite 100-degree average temperatures, Bristow paddled in long pants and a long-sleeved shirt and donned a head scarf while portaging. At one point, three villagers accosted the team along the Zez River—holding Becky in her boat and making menacing hand gestures until the team’s British photographer, Alex Nicks, handed over his camera to appease them. “That was some outrageous stuff that I don’t think happens over there that often,” says Bristow. “The majority of the time we met beautiful people who were generous and friendly.” Bristow got her start on tamer waters in 1989, paddling the North Saskatchewan River near her home in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, in a 13-foot fiberglass kayak her father bought at a garage sale. Fourteen years later, she has notched first descents in Alaska, Ecuador, Russia, and B.C. (she scouted drainages from a helicopter during the three summers she fought forest fires), starred in TGR’s film Wehyakin and Scott Lindgren’s Aerated, and is in the process of launching her own production company, Wild Soul Creations. “She comes off as an unassuming, mild-mannered Canadian,” says fellow paddler Kristen Read, 29. “It turns out she’s also a total badass.”

Kit DesLauriers

Freeskier

Kit DesLauriers

Kit DesLauriers

When Kit DesLauriers, 35, arrived at the base of Alaska’s 20,320-foot Mount McKinley this May, the entire summit was capped in blue ice. But a little hardpack wasn’t going to stop her from becoming the first American woman to ski the continent’s tallest peak. For 26 days, she and her husband, Rob, assaulted the mountain, helping to rescue a stranded Korean party and enduring biting snowstorms. At the summit, DesLauriers strapped on her alpine planks and skied down windswept icefields, arriving, eight hours of skiing later, at base camp at 7,200 feet. As an extended warm-up to the McKinley expedition, the Jackson, Wyoming, local carved turns on 13,770-foot Grand Teton in June 2003 and, the following November, clinched the first female ski descent of New Zealand’s 9,960-foot Mount Aspiring. This spring, DesLauriers will attempt two more ski expeditions—one to the Himalayas or Greenland and one to an undisclosed peak in Chile. “Skiing is life,” says DesLauriers. “I love winter. I love the mountains. Sometimes it feels like the easiest thing in the world to be doing.”

Jimmy Chin

All-Mountain Man

Jimmy Chin

Jimmy Chin

How do you get to be a professional adventurer? It’s a frequently asked question, and 31-year-old Jimmy Chin has the bona fides to answer. Based in Jackson, Wyoming, he has made newsworthy ascents in the Karakoram, the Himalayas (including Everest), and the tallest sandstone towers in the world, in Mali. A couple of years ago, he joined mountaineer Conrad Anker, the late photographer Galen Rowell, and me on a 275-mile unsupported traverse of a never-explored corner of northwestern Tibet, where each guy had a 250-pound rickshaw strapped (as Jimmy put it) “to our asses.” Jimmy proved his strength, not only carting gear at 16,000 feet but capturing the decisive moments with both still and video cameras. But that’s the easy part of what you need to be a pro. The more difficult (and important) part is something you’re born with, and it makes you the type that other adventurers want on their team: You can’t stop smiling, no matter how tough it gets; you never complain, because your glass is always half full and there’s nothing to complain about; and your ego is post-Copernican—out there orbiting around with everyone else’s, not at the center of anything. And, oh, yeah, I forgot—I guess it doesn’t hurt if People magazine votes you one of the country’s most eligible bachelors.

Michael Phelps

Heavy-Medal Swimmer

In case you fell asleep during the gazillion hours that the Olympics were televised this August, here’s a news flash: Michael Phelps was the Man. Swimming 17 races in seven days, the 19-year-old Maryland native nabbed six gold medals and two bronzes, a record haul for any sport in a single, non-boycotted Olympics. Although Phelps’s physique guarantees domination in the pool—observe his lean six-foot-four, 195-pound frame, flipperlike size-14 feet, six-foot-seven-inch wingspan, and extra-long torso—it was his bring-it-on mentality that cemented him as the one to beat in Athens. “He went after competition, not glory,” says Olympic commentator Rowdy Gaines, who won three gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. “He wasn’t afraid to take on the world’s best.” Case in point: Instead of entering the 200-meter backstroke—an event where at least a silver medal was a lock—Phelps swam against his Australian rival Ian Thorpe in the 200-meter freestyle, losing to Thorpe but snagging the bronze and breaking his own American record. But the much-heralded sportsmanship moment came when Phelps gave up his butterfly leg in the 4-by-100-meter medley relay to then-medalless teammate Ian Crocker. The U.S. team proceeded to win gold. Phelps’s pro status makes him ineligible for collegiate competition, but he’s still logging 50 pool miles a week as he prepares to start his freshman year at the University of Michigan, under the watchful eye of his longtime coach, Bob Bowman. It’s never too soon to start training for Beijing.

Rush Randle

Wave Doctor

Rush Randle, the greatest wave-sports athlete you’ve never heard of, lives for the cutting edge. Ever heard of tow-in surfing? Randle, 31, along with fellow all-star Laird Hamilton, invented it on Maui’s north coast in the early nineties. Ditto for kiteboarding, which made its debut in 1994–95, also on Maui. But his latest and greatest concoction is the upstart sport of foilboarding. The hybrid invention—which mounts an aluminum or carbon hydrofoil blade onto a wakeboard—got Hollywood treatment in Step Into Liquid and Billabong Odyssey, with sequences of foilboarders riding long, graceful swells. The physics are like that of an airplane wing: As the blade slices cleanly through the water, it provides so much lift that the board glides clear above the surface of the wave. The result is longer, faster, smoother rides—which may someday be the key to catching 100-foot waves. “It feels like flying,” says Randle, who builds and sells foilboards on Maui, where he lives with his wife, Erin, and their seven-year-old son. “It’s like being a pelican, riding the swells.” So for now, the Oahu native has dialed back his competition in the wildly nichefied sports of flow surfing (done in artificial pools) and sling surfing (in which a jet ski flings the surfer at a wave, launching him into acrobatic aerials) to concentrate on the hydrofoil. When the right swell hits this winter, he’ll be out there going the distance: “I want to take the longest ride on a single swell ever,” declares Randle, whose personal best is two miles. “With the right swell, I think I can go 50.”

André Tolmé

Golfer in the Rough

For most duffers, losing 509 balls and shooting 290 over par in one round would be a sign to quit the sport. Not for André Tolmé. His epic traverse of the world’s longest, most unconventional links—the 2.3-million-yard, par-11,880 country of Mongolia—made him the global spokesman for a nascent sport: extreme golf. In July, the 35-year-old civil engineer from Northfield, New Hampshire, completed his epic 90-day, 1,300-mile golfing expedition across the Mongolian steppes, where he spent most days fighting off fierce Siberian winds as he whacked balls with a 3-iron. What kept Tolmé going were the nomadic Mongolians who welcomed him into their yurts at night and fed him high-calorie (if not haute-cuisine) slabs of mutton fat, fermented mare’s milk, and sheep-brain pâé smeared on sliced sheep’s liver. Tolmé’s efforts landed him a spot on Jay Leno’s guest list in August and the coveted title of Golfer of the Year (as proclaimed by venerable New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson)—beating out country-club champs Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. When asked what could possibly top teeing off across Mongolia, he would only say, enigmatically, “I’ve got a few ideas.”

Tim Bluhm

Vagabond Rocker

Tim Bluhm

Tim Bluhm

Tim Bluhm lives in a 1995 Chevy Sportvan, but don’t let that throw you: The lead singer of the San Francisco band the Mother Hips has still managed to release nine albums, play more than 2,000 concerts, and build a cultish fan base—all the while stringing together a life of wilderness rambles that are as much Jack London as Jack Johnson. He tramps up and down the Golden State, skiing Mount Shasta, free-soloing Tuolumne Meadows’ Cathedral Peak, surfing the cold Northern California coast, and telemark-skiing the Sierra. This summer, he broke a 14-year concert streak and worked as a climbing guide in Yosemite. With a sun-soaked sound that blends Merle Haggard with the Beach Boys, Bluhm pitched his tent on a plot of California’s imagination and has been singing into the roar of the bulldozers ever since, a self-proclaimed “time-sick son of a grizzly bear” along the lines of Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt, with a similarly loyal following. In February, lines formed around the block in San Francisco for the premiere of Stories We Could Tell, a feature-length documentary about the band. This month, Bluhm releases California Way, a two-day session that Fog City Records producer Dan Prothero calls a “love letter from and about a disappearing place.” Reached by cell phone on a highway in the Sierra, Bluhm admitted that if he’d hit the jackpot ten years ago, he “probably would have just spent it all. Now,” he said, “I’d buy a better van. Or at least get my brakes fixed.”

Dwight Aspinwall & Perry Dowst

Gear Savants

What do you get when two New Hampshire engineers train their Ivy League brains on the lowly camp stove? Say hello to the Jetboil, a snazzy, all-in-one portable kitchen that—in 11 months on the market—has revolutionized backcountry cooking. It began as a brainstorm back in the nineties, when software engineer Dwight Aspinwall, now 43, was trekking Tasmania’s rain- and wind-pummeled South Coast Track. Every day, he’d watch his Aussie friends root around in their packs for their stoves, their pots, and their matches to make afternoon tea. Gotta be a better way, he thought. In 2001, Aspinwall teamed up with his second cousin, engineer Perry Dowst, 44. Three years and a few accidental fires later, the $80 Jetboil Personal Cooking System was born—an integrated fuel burner/pot/mug combo with a Star Trek–looking “FluxRing” heat exchanger that gives it double the heat-transfer efficiency of most other backpacking stoves. All you really need to know, though, is that, with infomercial-worthy ease and a flick of a knob (no lighter required!), it boils a cup of water in 60 seconds and uses 50 percent less fuel than a standard camp stove to do it. Since arriving in outdoor stores last January, Jetboil has become the buzz of bivy ledges and surf breaks nationwide—with everyone from firefighters to alpinists preaching the gospel of a fast cup of joe on the go. “A monkey could put this thing together and start boiling water within a minute,” says mountain guide Steven Tickle, who packed Jetboils for his clients’ fast-and-light assault on Nepal’s 22,494-foot Ama Dablam this fall. “You can always rely on it.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Environmental Action Hero

When he took over as governor of California in November 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the 57-year-old, Austria-born bodybuilder and action-film star, was poised to do what many thought was impossible: turn the GOP—or at least his Left Coast slice of it—green. ” ‘Jobs vs. the environment’ is a false choice,” he said on the campaign trail, and then he backed it up with an ambitious environmental action plan for California that included mandates to cut air pollution in half by 2010; start a Green Building Bank, offering incentives to eco-friendly construction projects; and ensure that 20 percent of California’s power comes from renewable sources by 2010 (and 33 percent by 2020). So how’s he doing so far? After focusing on budget deficits and government restructuring for the first ten months of his term, in September the Governator signed into law more than 20 pro-environment bills, creating the Sierra Nevada Conservancy to protect 25 million acres of central California and cracking down on cruise-ship pollution, while also backing a 25 percent reduction in exhaust emissions from cars and light trucks by 2016. Even skeptical groups like the Sierra Club are giving him a cautious thumbs-up. “He’s off to a fair start in signing legislation,” says Bill Allayaud, legislative director of Sierra Club California. “But his whole record is uneven.” Right, and what about the famous vow to modify one of his Hummers into a hydrogen-fuel-cell hybrid? California EPA director Terry Tamminen, the former head of Santa Monica BayKeeper whom Arnold appointed at the recommendation of cousin-in-law Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is standing by his boss. “He promised to convert one of his Hummers to hydrogen during the campaign,” says Tamminen, “and the governor is always a man of his word.”

Chris Anderson

Frontline Photographer

Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson

American Chris Anderson didn’t set out to become a war photographer. “It chose me. I didn’t choose it,” he says of his recent status as the intrepid shooter on every photo editor’s short list. At the relatively young age of 34, he has all the trappings of a grizzled photojournalist: an assortment of dented and dust-clogged rangefinder cameras; barely lived-in apartments in Paris and New York; a prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal, awarded by the Overseas Press Club for exceptional courage and enterprise; and a passport bloated with stamps from conflict-torn hot spots in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel. In truth, when Anderson signed on with U.S. News & World Report to spend three months covering the war in Afghanistan—and, 16 months later, with The New York Times Magazine to cover the war in Iraq—all he really desired was to see how people live their lives and to capture moments of human drama by “shooting stories at eye level,” as he calls his brand of experiential photography. “Chris is the embodiment of the creative spirit: restless, searching, always moving on,” says legendary photojournalist James Nachtwey, 56. “He wants to know how things look out of the corner of his eye, on the dead run.” Such was the case on April 7, 2003, two days before Baghdad fell, when Anderson was riding with an armored column through the center of the city, the only journalist to do so. He survived a direct RPG hit on his vehicle and, despite nearly losing an eye to shrapnel, joined a similar mission two days later. “People are usually shocked that I enjoy my job as much as I do,” he admits. “But with all the strife and chaos going on around me, as sick as it sounds, it’s an absolute adventure.”

Jim Prosser

Sustainable Vintner

Oregon winemaker Jim Prosser says his delectable 2002 vintage possesses “an ageable combination of power and grace.” The same can be said of the 41-year-old recreational mountaineer–cum–professional vintner, whose 1999 debut pinot noir turned international critics into salivating sissies. Prosser’s J.K. Carriere label continues to wow oenophiles at restaurants from NYC’s Oceana to Aspen’s Ajax Tavern, with pinots ranging from $18 to $65 that, Prosser says, are “more about seduction and less about ‘haul you back to the cave by the hair.'” He and his crew of 16 produce the wine in a converted hazelnut barn in the Willamette Valley, using centuries-old techniques and locally grown, pesticide-free grapes. “Great wines are made at the margins,” says the Peace Corps alum (he served as a small-business consultant in Lithuania from 1993 to 1995), who compares winemaking’s risks and rewards to those of climbing a peak or catching a trout. When he’s not off skiing Mount Bachelor or fishing the Deschutes, Prosser relishes the long hours caught up in the vines or on the crush deck. But things get less rosé when the bees come out to bite. Deathly allergic, he’s twice ended up in a near-coma working in the vineyards. “It reminds me I’ve made a conscious choice to do what I do,” declares Prosser. “Know thine enemy, I say.” Fittingly, his label pays tribute to his nemesis: A big wasp underlies the vintage.

Jim Fraps & Jeff & Paula Pensiero

Big-Pow Hoteliers

Annual snowfall of 42 feet, 36,000 acres of untracked bowls, and 18,000 vertical feet of deep turns a day: Welcome to the “church of the fall line” at Baldface Lodge, one of North America’s largest—and newest—snowcat skiing operations, whose worshipers have included late snowboarding king Craig Kelley, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, and Foo Fighters bass player Nate Mendel. Eight years ago, the founders of this 24-guest powder haven in the heart of British Columbia’s Kootenay Mountains, 37-year-old Jim Fraps and his college buddy Jeff Pensiero, 35, were working and boarding in Tahoe—surviving on ramen noodles and a dream: to cash in on B.C.’s backcountry. The two scraped together $50,000, then scouted an area near Nelson that raked in consistently huge snowfalls. By the time they were granted tenure from the B.C. government for the land, in 2000, their $50,000 was history. Then a friend introduced Pensiero to Mendel and Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl, both eager investors. In December 2002 the duo, along with Pensiero’s wife, Paula, opened the lodge, a timber-framed structure perched at 6,750 feet on a ridge linking five peaks. A steady diet of cabernet and plank-grilled salmon—along with guides like 1998 Olympic boarder Mark Fawcett—and a happy, happening vibe have charmed guests ever since. “Their enthusiasm is infectious,” says Mendel. “It spreads throughout the whole operation.”

Darren Berrecloth

Freeride Mountain Biker

Darren Berrecloth

Darren Berrecloth

Darren Berrecloth, 23, remembers the exact moment he decided to dedicate his life to mountain biking. It was the summer of 2002, he’d taken the day off from his job at a Vancouver, B.C., machine shop to compete in a dirt-jump contest in Whistler, and his boss was pissed. “This skinny, nerdy guy was yelling at me that I needed to snap out of this biking thing,” he remembers, “to wake up and smell the coffee.” Berrecloth was fired on the spot. That fall, he showed up in Virgin, Utah, for the Red Bull Rampage—freeriding’s premier huckfest—unregistered, unsponsored, and virtually unknown. He took third. Since then, “Bear Claw” has almost single-handedly radicalized freeride mountain biking by bringing BMX stunts like spins, hand grabs, and no-hands seat grabs to an already extreme sport. With signature moves like the Superman Seat Grab Indian Air (translation: flying through the air, feet off the pedals, bike out in front, one hand on the bars), he won both the 2003 Joyride Slopestyle Expression Session, in Whistler, and the 2004 Monster Park Slopestyle Invitational, in Marquette, Michigan. While Berrecloth’s outta-nowhere podium finishes have raised eyebrows, his film segments have redefined what’s possible with two knobby tires and eight inches of travel. In the 2003 video New World Disorder IV: Ride the Lightning, he pulled a 360 off a 25-foot cliff in Kamloops, B.C. “People were blown away,” says filmmaker Derek Westerlund. “It was a big jump for most riders to even go off, and Darren rode up and did a 360 off it.” In Westerlund’s latest film, Disorderly Conduct, Berrecloth clears a 50-foot jump over a canyon in France. One man’s lunacy is just the logical next step for Berrecloth: “I’m always pushing myself to learn new things,” he says. “That’s what makes me tick.”

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SUIT UP » Trail running has its share of hazards: Sneaky roots will instantly take you from vertical to horizontal, while ankle-twisting rocks seem to pop up out of nowhere. Needless to say, your attack plan should include high-performance gear. Start with (1) LOWE ALPINE’s DRY ZONE LONG SLEEVED T-SHIRT ($59), with patches of high-ventilation polyester over chest, pits, sides, and spine. On chilly mornings, cover up with the (2) SPIRE WIND VEST ($75) from MOONSTONE—it’s got ripstop nylon in front, breathable Polartec PowerStretch in back, and nifty reflective stripes. For your locomotive half, THE NORTH FACE’s FLIGHT TRAIL SHORTS ($42) have a supportive CoolMax liner shelled with quick-drying nylon, plus four pockets. For comfort in the cold, try thermoregulatory (3) CONDITIONING TIGHTS ($80) from CW-X, built with a generous helping of CoolMax, plus structured Lycra-and-nylon panels to stabilize your knees. FOOT ARMOR » Blisters suck, so treat your feet to SMARTWOOL’s ADRENALINE MICRO SOCKS ($13); they have serious cush down below, a reinforced arch, and anti-blister padding for the heel and Achilles. The sap-sticky, topographic treads on the (4) LA SPORTIVA COLORADO TRAIL AT ($85) invite you to cruise any landscape, from fire roads to boulder fields. ACCESSORIZE » Complete your outfit with some specialized accoutrements: Say sayonara to chilled digits with the (5) COLDOUT MIDWEIGHT GLOVE by DESCENTE ($25). (6) ULTIMATE DIRECTION’s EXCEL HHS waist pack ($30) holds a 20-ounce water bottle horizontally, for easy snagging with either hand.

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Though we admire the ease of energy-replenishing snacks like Gu and PowerBars, man can’t live on them alone. So we asked top athletes, from marathoners to pole-vaulters, to cough up their best recipes—after all, if the fuel in their tanks isn’t effective, they’re out of work. They offered a variety of well-balanced ideas which—according to Monique Ryan, (author of the 2002 book Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes), who evaluated the recipes—meet athletes’ nutritional requirements: plenty of carbs, a good dose of protein, and some healthy fat. Not only will these recipes fuel your muscles for any run, ride, or climb you want to take on, they only require around 10 minutes of preparation time—a little more than what it takes to unwrap a PowerBar, we realize, but well worth the wait.

fitness, nutrition

Best Breakfast

“‘Oatmeal makes a hard day’s work easier,’ my grandpa always told me,” says Michael Barry, a USPS cyclist married to Dede Demet-Barry, who rides for T-Mobile, “It’s true; this power-packed, hearty dish of oats carries Dede and I up the mountains in Boulder even on the coldest spring day.” The two, who compete on the US Pro Cycling Tour, add eggs to up the protein content. “You can also just use egg whites if you’re concerned about fat, which is harder to digest before a race.”


Grandpa Lapp’s Porridge



2 cups oats
1/3 cup millet
6 cups water, soy milk or milk.
1/4 cup of raisins or currants.
4 eggs
Pinch of salt


Put all ingredients, except the eggs, in a pan and bring to a boil. Add eggs. Turn down the head to simmer. Stir with a wooden spoon vigorously for about 5 minutes, or until the oats have absorbed the liquid. If you like, add any of the following: honey, apples, bananas, pumpkin or sunflower seeds, maple syrup, or a splash of cold milk or soymilk.


Best Power Lunch

“I keep this in my fridge all week long and eat it before I run,” says Jenny Adams, an Olympic-hopeful hurdler, who likes to add fresh herbs from her garden to the salad. To keep it light, Adams prefers to top whole wheat crackers with the salad; for people going out for at least an hour, Ryan recommends making a sandwich on multi-grain bread with it, and eating it two to three hours before a workout.


Chicken Salad



1 cup cooked, chopped chicken
1/2 cup of plain, non-fat yogurt
1 apple, diced
1 celery stick, diced
1/2 c of red grapes, cut in half
fresh chives
salt and pepper to taste
Add any other fresh herbs you like: parsley, cilantro, etc.


Mix ingredients together, chill and serve.


Best Training Dinner

While this Thai chicken recipe, a favorite of Olympic high jumper Amy Acuff, takes a little longer than ten minutes to prepare, it’s time well spent: the well-balanced meal is prepared according to the healthy, healing tenets of traditional Chinese medicine. “The cool water chestnuts and bean sprouts neutralize the warming chili oil and balsamic vinegar,” says Acuff, currently studying the discipline. If you’re going to use this as a pre-race dinner, be sure the spices don’t upset your stomach, warns Ryan.


Quick Thai Chicken



1 cup basmati rice
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon chili oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3 chicken breasts, chopped into small pieces
2 tablespoons grated ginger
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 can water chestnuts
1 cup bean sprouts
1 cup smooth peanut butter


Boil the rice. In another pan, heat the oil, soy sauce, chile oil and vinegar, then add the chicken. Cook for five minutes, or until thoroughly cooked. Add the ginger, garlic, water chestnuts, and sprouts and cook until the water chestnuts and sprouts soften—about 2-3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and add the peanut butter and rice. Mix thoroughly, top with the chopped cilantro, and serve.

Best Mega-Power Drink

“This may seem like a massive gut bomb,” says Paul Romero, an elite adventure racer who competes on Team Epinephrine, “But my teammates and I rate protein drinks on their ability to both fuel long workouts and stay down during them. This one is excellent on both counts.” While Ryan applauds the creative carbs in marshmallows, she cautions this isn’t for everybody. “It’s a lot of protein,” she says, “It’s best for people who are going long distances at a low intensity.”


Epi Goop



1 Extreme Chocolate METRX protein drink packet
2 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
15 small marshmallows (or 5 large ones)
1 egg
2 cups water
1 cup Silk
2 cups ice Put all ingredients in a blender and blend for 30 seconds.

Best Mid-Day Snack

“I like to cook, but rarely have the time to make anything extravagant,” admits Darcy Piceu, an ultrarunner who placed fifth in the 2002 Leadville 100. She relies on staples like cereal, sliced banana and soy milk for breakfast, and swears by her low-maintenance burrito, which, because of high-protein peanut butter and high-carb tortilla, honey, and apple, works nicely as an at-work snack or pre-race fuel.


Simple Burrito



tortilla
2 tablespoons natural peanut butter
1/2 green apple, thinly sliced
Squirt of honey Spread the peanut butter on the tortilla, top with apple slices and drizzle with honey, then roll.


Best During-Workout Snack

Xterra athlete Jamie Whitmore takes an even simpler burrito on long mountain bike rides with her. “It’s the only thing that isn’t too messy to eat,” she admits. If you’re out longer than 75 minutes, you need to have a refueling strategy, says Ryan. If you’re tired of using gels or sports drinks to get the 30-60 grams of carbs you need every hour, here’s another option.


Simpler Burrito



Tortilla
1-2 tablespoons natural peanut butter
Sonic Strawberry Clif Shot or 1 tablespoon fruit spread Spread peanut butter, then Clif Shot or fruit spread on the tortilla. Roll and cut into easily-consumable, bite-size pieces.

Best Grab-on-your-way-to-the-shower Treat

“We eat these all the time!,” exclaims Karen Lundgren, an adventure racer on Team Epinephrine, “For breakfast, pre-workout, post-workout, before bed. Anytime, really, until they run out, and then we make more.” The high carbs help your muscles replace the glycogen they’ve burned during a workout, says Ryan. Think of this sweet snack as a vital part of the recovery process.


Peanut Butter Cookies



1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
18 ounces peanut butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped peanuts


In a large bowl, cream butter, and white and brown sugars until smooth. Add eggs, yolk and vanilla; mix until fluffy. Stir in peanut butter. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt, and stir into peanut butter mixture. Stir in peanuts. Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours. Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease cookie sheet. Roll dough into walnut-sized balls. Place on cookie sheet and slightly flatten with fork. Bake for 12-15 minutes; when done, cookies should look dry on top.


Best Recovery Meal

“Black beans are high in protein and carbs, which makes them a great choice for refueling after a tough effort,” says Deena Kastor, who holds the marathon record for American women, “With just one bowl, you restore glycogen and repair damaged muscle tissue.” In addition, she adds, black beans are an excellent source of iron and magnesium, both of which assist in oxygen delivery to your muscles.


Black Bean Soup



1Tbsp. olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
4 cans of black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 tsp each cumin, oregano
1tsp red wine vinegar
1 bottle of favorite beer
water or chicken broth to desired consistency
cayenne pepper, salt & pepper to taste


In a pot, saute onions in olive oil until browned. Add all other ingredients and let them come to a rapid boil. (“I usually jump in the shower then,” Deena says.) Pour all the contents into a blender, and purée. Top with freshly chopped cilantro, tomatoes, and/or avocado. Eat with tortillas.


Best Smoothie

Jamie Whitmore, who finished second at the 2002 and 2003 Xterra World Championships, often swigs down a smoothie after a long training ride or run. The banana and orange juice provides a good dose of potassium, which you lose copiously during long exercise sessions and may contribute to muscle cramps. “It also helps to rehydrate,” adds Ryan.


Orange Protein Shake



1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup vanilla soy milk
1 1/2 frozen or fresh banana
1-2 scoops orange sorbet
1 scoop protein powder
1 handful of mixed berries
ice


Put all ingredients in a blender; blend and serve.

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We’re not talking fries and fat, with fresh nowhere in sight. We’re talking about smart nutrition to help you charge up, trim down, and get the most out of mealtime. We picked the brains of top athletes for their favorite full-flavored quick-and-easy recipes. Prep time is less than ten minutes; benefits are lifelong.

nutrition, nutrional recipes

(1) START SMART

U.S. Postal Service team rider Michael Barry’s
Performance Porridge


2 cups oats
1/3 cup millet
6 cups water, milk, or soy milk
1/4 cup raisins or currants
4 eggs
Pinch of salt


Put all ingredients except eggs in a pan and bring to a boil. Add eggs. Reduce heat to a simmer, then stir well for five minutes, or until the oats have absorbed the liquid. Garnish with honey and fruit.


(2) HANDY SNACKAGE

High-Energy Trail Bars from the members of adventure racing’s Team Epinephrine


1 cup rolled oats
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup peanut butter
1 1/3 cups brown-rice syrup
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/3 cups vanilla-flavored soy protein powder
2 tsp ground espresso


Preheat oven to 350, spread oats on cookie sheet, and toast until brown (about eight minutes). Mix all ingredients except oats in a microwave-safe bowl, then microwave on high for one minute. Stir and repeat until chocolate is melted. Mix oats in, spread onto a lightly greased glass baking dish, and refrigerate. When cooled, cut into bars. Makes 20.


(3) SUPER-REHYDRATING SMOOTHIE

Off-road triathlete Jamie Whitmore’s Orange Energy


1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup vanilla soy milk
1 1/2 bananas
1–2 scoops orange sherbet
1 tbsp protein powder
1/2 cup mixed berries
1–2 cups ice


Mix ingredients in a blender and enjoy.


(4) LAUNCHPAD LUNCH

Olympic runner Jenny Adams’s Primo Pollo Salad


1 cup cooked, chopped chicken
1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1 apple, diced
1 celery stick, diced
1/2 cup red grapes, cut in half
1 tbsp fresh chives
Salt and pepper to taste


Mix ingredients in a bowl, then chill in the refrigerator. Garnish with fresh herbs before eating.


(5) MIDWORKOUT WONDER

Off-road triathlete Jamie Whitmore’s Burrito de Whitmore


1 tortilla
1–2 tbsp natural peanut butter
1 tbsp fruit spread or 1 packet Sonic Strawberry Clif Shot energy gel


Spread fillings over tortilla, roll up, and cut into small bites.