Every year, people do amazing things in the great outdoors. Getting away from society and into the wilderness is always an incredible opportunity to get to know yourself better. It’s also a way to push yourself past your own self-imposed limits. When we go outdoors, we learn two things at once—how small we are in relation to the world, and how we are inextricably a part of it.
It’s an incredible feeling to be the first recorded person to do something amazing. It’s equally incredible to attempt something difficult, overcome obstacles, and—whether or not you accomplish what you set out to do—find yourself somewhere new and exciting. The most amazing part of this year has been the human stories that emerge from our outdoor culture and the people that make it up.
Here are a few of those stories, those people outdoors, that we’d like to celebrate in our Outdoors people of the year list as 2023 comes to a close.
Gelje Sherpa
Mt. Everest, the highest peak in the world, is an incredibly dangerous alpine environment. There are somber trail markers composed of people who have already passed on the ascent, nicknamed things like “Sleeping Beauty” and “Green Boots.” This year, Gelje Sherpa, an accomplished guide and mountaineer, prevented one more death from occurring on the way up to this legendary peak. On May 18, while guiding a client to the summit, Gelje saw a Malaysian climber reportedly clinging to a rope and shivering from extreme cold. He took it upon himself to rescue the climber, performing a rare rescue from Everest’s “death zone,” known for intense, dangerous cold. Gelje brought the climber down nearly 2,000 feet in elevation, was joined by Nima Tahi Sherpa, another guide, then managed to haul him down to camp III where a helicopter was able to grab him.
Outdoors.com spoke with Gelje Sherpa earlier this year. He’s a respectable figure in high alpine mountaineering, having summited 13 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks, leading several expeditions and performing many rescues along the way. He shared some of his thoughts about how there should perhaps be a higher barrier to entry for an experience like Everest. At least, with the way things are now, it has in some ways become a “playground for the rich.” His considerations on perhaps restricting permits or asking that potential Everest climbers have more experience before setting out show his respect for life. This respect is also obvious in his life-saving efforts in May. As Gelje, a devout Buddhist, told Reuters: “Saving one life is more important than praying at the monastery.”
Courtney Dauwalter
We couldn’t create a list of 2023’s outdoor people of the year without mentioning Courtney Dauwalter. She has had an absolutely historic year, to the point where it’s hard to overstate what she’s done in 2023.
First, she set a new course record at the Western States 100-mile Endurance Run, with a time of 15:29:34. This time was nearly 80 minutes faster than the previous record, and she did it June 24-25 of this year. July 14, less than a month later, she ran the Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run. Hardrock’s course is 102.5 miles long with 33,197 feet of elevation gain and the same amount of descent. She finished in 26:14:08, fourth overall, smashing another record that she had set in 2022. As if that wasn’t enough, in late August, Courtney went on to win the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB), the world championships on the ultrarunning circuit, with a time of 23:29:14.
She became the only person thus far to win all three of these prestigious races in a calendar year. These three races being so close together was a big part of why many considered Courtney’s 2023 feat impossible. Did we mention she took a wrong turn at Hardrock and had to account for that? Courtney speaks often of entering her “pain cave”—going to a specific place in her mind that allows her to dig deep despite the physical suffering that comes with her ultrarunning. Later in the year, she ran The Javelina 100 with her mom, a victory lap with her biggest fan at her side. Courtney is famous for long shorts and running on nachos, beer, and candy.
West Hansen and the Arctic Cowboys
This year, West Hansen led a team of three other paddlers: Jeff Wueste, Eileen Visser, and Mark Agnew on the first ever kayak expedition of the entire Northwest Passage. Tom McGuire and Barbara Edington supported. As a team, they navigated over 2,000 human-powered miles with frankly ridiculous challenges along the way. We spoke to West for a brief account of the team’s adventure.
West, a natural choice for Outdoors people of the year, is no stranger to notable first expeditions. With a background in ultra paddle racing, he was the first to paddle the whole Amazon in 2012 and the Volga River—Europe’s longest—in 2014. He and Jeff Wueste, longtime friend, had to “sneak in on” the Volga, as Russia had just invaded Crimea at the time. West happens to be a history buff when it comes to historic expeditions, and he had been researching The Northwest Passage. He found no one had actually completed it.
He and his team had planned first to do it in 2020, were delayed by Covid, then tried in earnest in 2022. Unfortunately, they started late in the season, and their support fell through. “When you’re doing something for the first time, there’s not a roadmap,” he said. They were forced to bail on that first attempt.
The Second Attempt
In 2023, they returned for a successful voyage. It took them a couple weeks paddling even to get to the Northwest Passage. After a 45-mile open-ocean cross from one side of the Prince Regent Inlet to the other, they ran into an ice floe about a mile wide, caught in a current. In the shifting ice, both boats were almost crushed. Luckily, the round hulls of their kayaks were forced up by the ice instead of crushed by them. They hopped out and dragged the kayaks up onto the ice, dragging them from one slab of ice to another until they were able to get to the edge of the floe, jump in, and paddle away to the safety of shore. “That was kinda hairy,” said West. “That was—that was disturbing.”
They also ran into a lot of polar bears, but taking all the necessary precautions, they were able to scare them off without anyone in the expedition or the bears being injured. As winter closed in, there were many days that never got above freezing. Storms forced them to hunker down, then make up the miles when the weather cleared. Even after reaching the end of the Northwest Passage itself, they had a few days and a few hundred miles to safety. West wasn’t able to relax until they got in that bush plane home.
Jaylyn Gough
As the founder of Native Womens Wilderness, Jaylyn Yenabah Gough plays an important role in outdoor culture every year, 2023 being no exception. You may have seen Jaylyn in the press already, discussing coming into her Diné (Navajo) lineage as an adult. She talks about her time at Standing Rock in 2016 as a turning point, both for her personally, and for the formation of Native Womens Wilderness. She centers a question for non-Native people venturing out into the backcountry: “Whose land are you exploring?”
This year, Native Womens Wilderness posted a particularly powerful series of photos and stories for May 5th. This was the National Day of Awareness for Missing & Murdered Native Women & Girls. You may see the hashtag #MMIW2S around, and this movement toward justice is what it refers to. The stories are well worth reading. More often, Native Womens Wilderness celebrates Native women who engage with and steward the outdoors. Jaylyn doesn’t do it alone, though. She is joined by Cali Wolf, Pinar Sinopoulos-Lloyd, Verna Volker, and others to form a capable team making a tangible difference in outdoor culture.
Robert Irwin
As a society, we can’t help but love Robert Irwin. Of course, we all hold his father’s legacy close to our hearts. It’s been a joy in the last few years, though, to see Robert come into himself not only as an outdoor personality but as a conservationist. Scrolling TikTok or Instagram Reels, you may have come across some of Robert’s live shows at the Australia Zoo. In these shows, he uses wit and charm to educate huge crowds of people about crocodiles, his favorite animal. It’s a natural choice to celebrate his growth and name him for this Outdoors people of the year list.
This year, he was GQ’s Social Force of the Year. He centers a specific message: “Treat every living being how you would like to be treated.” He clearly takes this to heart and joins his late father in leading with hope, with enthusiasm, and with positivity. As a conservationist, a photographer, and a media personality, Robert has always had big shoes to fill. His father, Steve, was such a singular, glowing personality that popular culture remembers him as fondly as any other public figure. He was a part of many people’s childhoods and our education in the natural world. So far, Robert is clearly rising to the challenge.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has had a storied career. As a multi-disciplinary talent, she has cemented her legacy as one of the greatest of all time in mountain biking, road cycling, and cyclo-cross. As a former world champion in the latter two categories, she shines particularly bright in the mountain biking world with nine individual world titles. 2015 was a particularly historic year when, at age 23, she became the first person in the history of cycling to have the World road title, the World cyclo-cross title, and the World cross-country mountain bike title all at the same time.
Ferrand-Prévot has had some tumult in her career as well. After her historic 2015, 2016 saw her abandoning her bike in Rio, not finishing her Olympic cross-country mountain bike event. She was working through injury, the weight of her success, and more. At the time, she wasn’t sure when she’d get back on her bike. With all this context in mind, it is an exciting victory for her at 2023’s UCI Cycling World Championships. This is her fifth iteration of this exact same title, to go along with her many other accolades.
Kelvin Kiptum
Coming from a lineage of top-of-their-class Kenyan runners, Kelvin Kiptum is setting new records and has his sights set on even more. He finished the Chicago marathon this year with a time of two hours and 35 seconds, setting a new world record. As a result, he’s become the first athlete to claim a time under two hours and one minute in official competition. His run this year in Chicago was his third official marathon and his first in the United States. He had already racked up a time of 2:01:25 that year in London, posting the second-fastest time in marathon history. Relatively new on the scene, Kelvin Kiptum is one of our Outdoors people of the year, and set to continue making history.
Kiptum is a father of two. His coach, Gervais Hakizimana, knew him as a young boy back in 2009. A retired runner himself, Hakizimana would be training near Kiptum’s father’s farm, and he told BBC that the younger Kiptum “would come kicking at my heels and I would chase him away. Now, I am grateful to him for his achievement.” As a Kenyan runner, Kiptum of course has his eyes set on the legacy of Eliud Kipchoge. Widely regarded as perhaps the best marathon runner ever, Kipchoge set an unofficial sub-two-hour marathon time. Kiptum aims to break two hours himself in an official context.
Shilletha “Dragonsky” Curtis
If you’ve seen Dragonsky on social media at all, you’ve seen her infectious, joyful energy and her honesty about herself and the world. A writer, Dragonsky burst onto the scene in 2020 when preparing for her Appalachian Trail (AT) hike. She wrote an article prompting conversations about what Black people experience outdoors. When it went viral, she found herself with a notable following, and took to it like a fish to water. Now, an Arc’teryx sponsorship and a Disney book deal later, Dragonsky remains wildly successful as she pursues her triple crown. Already well-deserving of a place in Outdoors people of the year, she intends to be the first Black, lesbian woman to achieve that title.
What makes 2023 a notable year for Dragonsky is the way her perseverance came to fruition this year. After finishing the AT in 2021, she set out on the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) in 2022. Unfortunately, injury kept her from completing the trail that year. She was forced to step back and reassess, but despite a brief delay on finishing the CDT, she wasn’t deterred. She set about picking up some serious mountaineering skills, accepting some mentorship from Evan Gill, the “Black Sherpa,” along the way. This whole time, she spoke with radical honesty not only about her identity but also about her mental health. If a part of outdoor culture’s spirit is based in overcoming adversity to achieve something incredible, Dragonsky represents that spirit to a T. She’s just recently revealed the cover for her book, forthcoming in April 2024. She’s an outdoor personality to keep an eye on.
Alexey Molchanov
The sport of freediving is one of the most harrowing in the world. Besides being extremely dangerous, observers watching even just a video may find their hearts beating fast. There’s that moment around 40 feet each time where the divers become negatively buoyant and start sinking without any more need for motion. It’s chilling, in some ways. Alexey Molchanov is no stranger to this feeling, though. He holds 34 world records, a true champion of the sport.
Molchanov’s stunning 2023 feat is yet another world record. In this latest record-setting dive, he went down a shocking 436 feet. This translated into a full four minutes and 25 seconds underwater. Something like this truly pushes the boundaries of what the human body is capable of. Freediving has received more widespread attention lately, with some well-made documentaries coming out that have stoked public interest. Molchanov is clearly a giant of the sport. He’s a conservationist as well as a teacher, focusing on water purification and breathing practices to deal with stress. Watch the video yourself, and see how long you can hold your breath.
Karel Sabbe
The “Fastest Known Time,” or FKT of the Pacific Crest Trail is one of the most hotly contested records in ultrarunning. Karel Sabbe, who had set the time back in 2016, came back this year to reclaim it from Timothy Olson. In 2021, Olson had set a time of 51 days, 16 hours, and 55 minutes. It had been a heroic attempt despite a year full of wildfires, and he had beat Sabbe’s record by nearly a full day. In 2023, though, Sabbe came back to smash the record by an incredible five days. He covered the 2,650-mile trail in 46 days, 12 hours, and 50 minutes. This reclamation of his previous record makes him a shoo-in for our Outdoors people of the year list.
Sabbe, a Belgian dentist, has completed several notable records. He was a finisher in the 2023 Barkley Marathons, winner of the 2020 World Champion Backyard Ultra, he set the Appalachian Trail FKT in 2018, and those are just some of the notable ones. After setting his latest PCT speed record this year, he told Trail Runner, “If you go into an FKT attempt with the current FKT in mind, you’re limiting yourself.” He averaged over 60 miles a day and set a record that will be extremely difficult to beat.
Brisa Hennessy
Brisa Hennessy is a surfer with incredible talent and world-class accolades. Growing up off the grid and surfing in Costa Rica until the age of eight, she then moved to Hawaii. That’s where she set her foot into the world of competition and has established herself since in the professional circuit. Living now on the island Namotu in Fiji, she has grown up within arm’s reach of the best waves the world has to offer. She’s got two gold medals from the International Surfing Association and another from the Pan American Games. At home on the World Surf League’s circuit, Brisa has already represented Costa Rica in the 2020 Olympics and is set to do so again in Paris in 2024.
This year, Brisa made news in an exclusive feature with Olympics.com by sharing her personal story and struggle with body image. Despite the intense challenges of sharing such an intimate personal struggle in the public eye, she came forward to speak to an issue that women and people across the world know too well. She discussed her poor body image, going back to her teenage years. She spoke also about a three-year struggle with an eating disorder. Other physical health ailments affect her day-to-day too, which put into context some of the obstacles she’s had to overcome to find her success.
Between her fantastic talent, athleticism, and her honesty, she more than deserves to be named one of our Outdoors people of the year. She also acts as a role model for young women and girls experiencing similar issues, showing how you can be at the top of your field despite adversity, how to step back from competition to take care of yourself, and how to be an all-star athlete regardless.
CHECK OUT THESE OTHER YEAR-END STORIES FROM OUTDOORS.COM:
- The Year in Outdoors: A Look Back at 2023
- The Year in Outdoors: People of the Year 2023
- The Year in Outdoors: 2023 Saw Some Great New Gear—Here Are a Few Favorites
- The Year in Outdoors: Our Top 10 Stories in 2023 (Plus 10 You May Have Missed)
- The Year in Outdoors: New Mosses, Mushrooms, and Other Forest Things Discovered in 2023
- The Year in Outdoors: New Animal Species Discovered in 2023
- The Year in Outdoors: Our Favorite Creators, YouTubers, and Podcasters of 2023
- The Year in Outdoors: These Were Some of the Most Heartwarming, Epic, and Outrageous Outdoor Videos of 2023
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