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A salute to ALL the editors, writers, photographers, designers, and fact checkers who’ve made ���ϳԹ��� come alive.* Plus: a partial list of career highlights.

Doug Peacock, Mark Allen, Kris Tompkins, Shaun White, Lynn Hill, Lindsey Vonn, Yvon Chouinard, Conrad Anker, and Laird Hamilton reflect on their passions and their lives outside

No one knew if it could be done. But when Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler climbed Mount Everest without oxygen in 1978, they smashed one of the last barriers of human performance. Almost 40 years later, both legends talk about their first ascent by “fair means”—and the long-running feud that followed.

Change comes for everybody, including a group of adventurous friends who’ve convened for years to climb, swap stories, and hoist a few. These days, their founder is grappling with incurable cancer. On a happier note, their decision to open the doors a little wider has given the gathering a fresh, life-affirming spirit.

Memorable lives combine tough choices, an adventurous spirit, hard work, and luck—and who knows where any of it comes from? For our writer, the wellspring was a Colorado spread that she was barely able to buy in 1993. It became her escape from a violent childhood and the magical ground that changed her life.

Our former editor on the craziest and least taste-defensible piece he ever assigned

Our former editor on Thomas McGuane's almost cinematic contemplation of hunting

Our former editor on finding the embodiment of the unkillable idea of literate badass adventure

There were many stories that were more fun to cook up and publish, but nothing quite compares with the force and moral clarity of Jon Krakauer’s account of the 1996 tragedies on Mount Everest

If you’re lucky, you encountered nature for the first time by running out the back door. During our writer's boyhood, a suburban forest was a gateway to learning, exploration, and natural splendors that shaped his life and career.

After a legendary career in adventure writing, Tim Cahill thought his story was over. Thrown from a raft in the Grand Canyon’s Lava Falls, he was trapped underwater and out of air. When he finally reached land, his heart stopped for several minutes. Then he came back—and decided to risk Lava again.

When Antarctica hits you with the worst storm in decades, sinks your boat, and drowns your crew, there’s only one way to react: get another ship and go back for more

Lance Armstrong has a new narrative about his incredible rise and fall. Should we believe him this time?

The world likes to tell us what we can’t do. For Kimi Werner—spearfisher, freediver, shark whisperer, chef, artist, and entrepreneur—the key to a badass life was learning to listen to a different voice: her own.

What you’ll take from the stories in this issue is that same bit of wisdom gleaned from all great adventure tales. We humans can endure far more than we ever imagined.

To travel the Pony Express, riders had to brave apocalyptic storms, raging rivers, snow-choked mountain passes, and some of the most desolate, beautiful country on earth. To honor the sun-dried memory of those foolhardy horsemen, we dispatched Will Grant and a 16-year-old cowboy prodigy to ride 350 miles in a hurry.

Whether our writers and editors were drawn to flower and tree, bird and creature, or sun and moon, the outdoors wowed them in ways that never let go

It's rare for a product to stand the test of time, but these seven items are as good as they ever were