IN MEMORIAM
100) Edmund Hillary
(JULY 20, 1919—JANUARY 11, 2008)
As a young man, Edmund Hillary started walking up New Zealand's rough mountains simply because they'd become irresistible to him. He was not part of any establishment. But he could appreciate natural beauty, embraced physical challenges, and proved able to calculate, strategize, and focus in an environment notoriously hard on the synapses. On May 29, 1953, he and his climbing partner, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, "Knocked the bastard off" …and how. Hillary might easily have slid from the high ground in the 55 years that followed the Everest feat, but he didn't. He kept exploring and climbing, risking his phenomenally public reputation at the world's fringes. He did his share of books, lectures, and slide shows, to be sure. He shook hands with president and premiers and prime ministers, was knighted and given medals. But ultimately those things were not rewards for a few cold moments on the roof of the world. In fact, Sir Ed became an icon for his warmth. He devoted himself to a personal brand of philanthropy: building schools, clinics, airfields, and bridges for the impoverished farmers who'd helped him to fame. He chose to see himself as lucky. As unsophisticated as the beekeeper's son was supposed to have been, he set extremely sophisticated standards for those of us in his wake who call ourselves mountaineers.

99–94) Dudes
Normally, the DUDES just abide. But in 2008, they excelled. The success of Deadliest Catch and Dirty Jobs opened the door for similar pseudo-reality shows like ICE ROAD TRUCKERS and AX MEN, both dedicated to dangerous jobs and the tough guys who only occasionally die doing them. Wily Republican operatives smartly used this testosterone-fueled moment in history to cue up moose-hunting Sarah and "First Dude" TODD PALIN, who, as an oil-field worker, long-distance snowmobile racer, and commercial salmon fisherman, could single-handedly fill the Discovery Channel lineup. And boutique companies like Brooklyn-based OXEN WORKWEAR and adventure-inspired men's shops like ROGUES GALLERY, which opened its first store in Portland, Maine, this year, are fueling the trend across the country. Remember, though: If you wear Carhartts for fashion rather than function, you're still kinda lame, dude.

93) New York City's menaced pedestrians got a nice respite this past summer when Mayor Michael Bloomberg closed 6.9 miles down the spine of Manhattan to motorized vehicles. For three Saturdays in August, SUMMER STREETS brought the park to Park Avenue.

92) After becoming the first quadriplegic to sail solo across the English Channel—in her custom 20-foot boat, Malin (controlled by sipping and puffing air through straws), in 2005—HILARY LISTER set out on June 16 to circumnavigate Great Britain. Severe weather and technical failures halted the bid after two months, but she plans to finish next spring.

91) Their boat was, literally, a junker. But that was the idea. In sailing their 30-foot heap of an expedition boat, JUNK—six pontoons filled with 15,000 plastic bottles, with a deck of old sailboat masts and a cab­in from a retired Cessna—from California to Hawaii this past summer, Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal sought to highlight the sheer volume of plastic trash in our oceans, like in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The duo had a relatively easy crossing, then a horrifying realization: The bottles had held up brilliantly over the three-month voyage.

90) Sweet deal: In June, the state of Florida agreed to purchase from U.S. Sugar 292 square miles adjacent to EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK. The area, where the company had farmed sugarcane since the thirties, should contribute about a million acre-feet of water annually to the parched Everglades.