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Historical Badass: Climber Vera Komarkova
Vera Komarkova’s determination was a large part of what got two women to the summit of 26,545-foot Annapurna on October 15, 1978, when she and Irene Miller stood atop the deadliest 8,000-meter peak in...
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Historical Badass: Pioneering Alaska Climber Dora Keen
Dora Keen had already impressed the climbing world before she became the first woman to mountaineer in Alaska in 1911. Among the world’s first female climbers, she had summited peaks in Ecuador,...
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Historical Badass: Snowboarder Marco Siffredi
During the early summer of 1999 in Chamonix, France, if news of a big snowboard descent hit town, no one would have expected it to come from a 20-year-old kid who had been riding for only four years....
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Historical Badass: Aviator Beryl Markham
Beryl Markham didn't get a hero's welcome when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic east to west—she crash-landed on what looked like a safe, green field, but was actually a...
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Historical Badass: Alpinist Wanda Rutkiewicz
Lithuanian-born Wanda Rutkiewicz was arguably the finest female high-altitude mountaineer of the twentieth century. During her action-packed life she led or participated in some 22 expeditions to the...
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Historical Badass: Everest Pioneer George Mallory
George Mallory and Everest became inseparable in the public imagination during the first attempts to climb the mountain in the early 1920s. Both became icons; the latter as a symbol of the terrible...
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Historical Badass: Alpinist Alex Lowe
With nicknames such as the Lung with Legs and the Mutant, it comes as no surprise that Alex Lowe had a reputation as one of the fittest and strongest mountaineers who ever lived. Lowe's exceptional...
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Historical Badass: Alpinist Claude Kogan
In 1959 the diminutive French swimwear designer and accomplished alpinist Claude Kogan set out for the 8,200-meter summit of Cho Oyu, the world's sixth-highest peak. She was joined by her friend, a...
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Historical Badass: Sierra Climber Norman Clyde
Originally from Philadelphia, Norman Clyde migrated to California to become a schoolteacher in his mid-20s. After the sudden death of his wife in 1919, he went to live alone in the Eastern Sierras and...
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Historical Badass: Climber and Author Peter Boardman
After climbing Everest in 1975, Pete Boardman found he had become a mountaineering celebrity. Uneasy with this status, he still felt he had to prove something to his peers. Accordingly, the next year...
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Historical Badass: Climber Bill Tilman
Often cited as one of the originators of the stylish lightweight approach to mountaineering, Major Harold William "Bill" Tilman was a remarkable man of action who continues to inspire generations of...
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Historical Badass: Claire Marie Hodges, First Female National Park Ranger
In the summer of 1918, toward the end of World War I, pickings were slim for able-bodied, non-deployed men to fill manual labor jobs. Women were tapped to work as police officers and factory workers....
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Historical Badass: Alpinist Fred Mummery
Albert Frederick Mummery, a myopic, stooped tannery owner from Dover, England, with a cheeky wit and a forceful climbing ability, is often credited with writing the manifesto of modern alpinism. "The...
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Historical Badass: Alpinist George Ingle Finch
George Finch was a maverick Australian alpinist who spent a great deal of time fighting skirmishes with the British climbing establishment while on the fringes of selection for the early Everest...
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Historical Badass: Climber Lily Bristow
[caption id="attachment_70310" align="alignnone" width="660"] Typical women's climbing kit of the day.[/caption] “All mountains appear doomed to pass through three stages: An inaccessible peak, the...
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Historical Badass: Climber Charlie Porter
In a career full of superhuman stories, Charlie Porter’s 1975 climb on Baffin Island’s Mt. Asgard stands out: He took a month just to ski in all his gear to the base of the route, lashing a long pole...
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Historical Badass: President Theodore Roosevelt
Just before a campaign speech in Milwaukee on October 14, 1912, a man named John Schrank shot candidate Theodore Roosevelt in the chest. Roosevelt coughed, didn’t see any blood, and decided to go...
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Historical Badass: Fausto Coppi, Italian Cycling Champion
He is one of the most decorated cyclists of all time. He is the only Tour de France rider to have won the first Tour he entered, as well as the last. He won the Giro d’Italia five times, was the 1953...
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Historical Badass: Lady Hester Stanhope
There’s a fine line between gutsy and crazy. For most of her 60-some years, Lady Hester Stanhope danced willfully on either side of that line, outright straddling it on many occasions. Evaluations of...
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Historical Badass: Duke Kahanamoku, Ambassador of Aloha
“The best surfer out there is the one having the most fun.” - Duke Kahanamoku There’s a reason why a movie of Duke Kahanamoku’s life has never been made. No one would believe it. His C.V. reads like...
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