HEATHER ANDERSON

National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, Heather Anderson is the only woman who has completed the Appalachian, Pacific Crest and Continental Divide National Scenic Trails each three times. This includes her historic Calendar Year Triple Crown hike in 2018 when she hiked all three of those trails in one March-November season, making her the first female to do so.

She holds the overall self-supported Fastest Known Time (FKT) on the Pacific Crest Trail (2013). She also holds the female self-supported FKT on the Appalachian Trail (2015), and the Arizona Trail (2016). She has logged over 40,000 foot-miles since 2003 including 15 thru-hikes and many ultramarathons. She is also an avid mountaineer and peakbagger working on several ascent lists in the US and abroad. 

As a professional speaker, Heather speaks regularly about her adventures and the lessons learned on trail. She is the author of Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home (2019) chronicling her Pacific Crest Trail record and Mud, Rocks, Blazes: Letting Go on the Appalachian Trail (2021) about her 2015 AT record. She also co-authored a guide to long-distance hiking preparation with Katie Gerber called Adventure Ready: A Hiker’s Guide to Training, Planning, and Resiliency (2022). You can find her online at wordsfromthewild.net or follow her on Instagram @ _wordsfromthewild_

CLARENCE KING

Posthumorous

The travels and science of King — with his range of adventures and scope of public impact — was in the league of William Brewer (Class of 2005) and Josiah Whitney (Class of 2007). Along with Brewer and Whitney, he was one of four leading team members to make the first historic geologic survey of California over a four-year period by foot, horseback and boat. In September 1864, President Abraham Lincoln appointed King to make the first boundary survey of Yosemite Valley. Whitney then arranged for King to make the first survey of the Mojave Desert. In 1879, Congress chose King as the first director of the U.S. Geological Survey.

As an academic, King published “Systematic Geology,” where he is credited as “defining the geologic history of the Western U.S.” The work was called “one of the great scientific works of the late nineteenth century.” As an author, he wrote “Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada” (1872), which made him a public figure recognized across America, and for those who can find a copy, a cult classic. Mount Clarence King in Kings Canyon National Park is named for him.

NORMAN CLYDE

This 20th-century mountaineer (1885-1972) achieved more than 130 first ascents, many in California's high Sierra and Yosemite. He set a speed climbing record on Mount Shasta in 1923, where he climbed from Horse Camp (at 8,000 feet) to the summit (14,179 feet) in 3 hours and 17 minutes. In 1925, he completed 53 climbs in the Sierra Nevada. Clyde has 1,467 articles archived at the Bancroft Library at the UC-Berkeley. He was a guide, naturalist and author.

"In my 80s, I still prefer to sleep outside at my ranch house, in my sleeping bag, not a bed," said Clyde, according to the Bancroft Library.

In 2018, Tapon returned to his California home after a series of expeditions in which he hiked 10,000 miles, including 2,000 miles across Madagascar, and climbed 50 of 54 of Africa’s highest peaks. Tapon has traveled to more than 100 countries and has written two books, “Hike Your Own Hike,” from 2006, and “The Hidden Europe: What Europeans Can Teach Us,” in 2012.

“The whole five years in Africa, it cost me $110,000,” he said. “It’s a lot of money, it’s true, but a lot of people could afford to do this if they wanted to. I camp, I live simply, buy street food. My biggest expense was a reliable 4x4 pick-up truck to get around Africa.”

GALEN CLARK

Clark (1814-1910) is best known for his discovery of the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia trees and for his role as guardian of Yosemite National Park for 21 years. In 1853, Clark had tuberculosis and doctors gave him six months to live. He then moved to the Wawona area of Yosemite as a homesteader. His lungs healed and he subsequently explored and climbed much of what became Yosemite National Park.

Upon his discovery of the Mariposa Grove, Clark persuaded Congress to pass the Yosemite Grant, which provided first-of-a-kind park-like protection for the Mariposa Grove. Clark then became the first civilian ranger of Yosemite.

He ran a hotel in Wawona and wrote three books, including "Indians of the Yosemite" (1904) and "The Yosemite Valley" (1910). After being told he would die a young man, he lived to be 96 and is buried in the Yosemite Cemetery. Said Clark: "I went to the mountains to take my chances of dying or growing better, which I thought were about even."

TOM STIENSTRA

An American author, outdoorsman and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Tom Stienstra is the consummate outdoorsman and conservationists. He has written numerous guidebooks on the California outdoors including Moon's California Camping, the best-selling and longest running outdoor guidebook series in America. His Moon Pacific Northwest Camping is an Oregon best seller.

In 2018, the Outdoor Writers Association of America awarded Stienstra 1st Place, Outdoor Recreation Photo of the Year. In 2017, the National Academy of Television awarded the Emmy for Health, Science and Environment Special to Stienstra and co-producer Jim Schlosser for their PBS Special, "The Mighty T -- the Tuolumne River." The PBS Special also won the President's Award from the Outdoor Writers Association of America as the best outdoors television show of any kind for the year in America. At the OWAA annual conference, Stienstra was the organization's only member recognized for first-place awards in newspaper, radio and television.

In 2015, Stienstra became America's first outdoors writer to win "The President's Award" as "Best of the Best" for the fourth time from OWAA, when he won best story of the year in the Newspaper Newspaper/Website division at the organization's annual awards banquet in Knoxville. The winning entry was “Paddling with giants,” published in the August 5, 2014 editions of the San Francisco Chronicle. To become a finalist for the President's Award, that story won first place in the Outdoor Fun and Adventure Category of the Newspaper/Website Contest. He is one of OWAA's most awarded members, and in 2009, he won first place for best outdoors column in America.

JOHN MUIR

Posthumous

John Muir (1838 – 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", he was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States of America.

 His letters, essays, and books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park, and his example has served as an inspiration for the preservation of many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he co-founded, is a prominent American conservation organization.

 In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, Muir published two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in The Century Magazine, "The Treasures of the Yosemite" and "Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park"; this helped support the push for U.S. Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas.

 John Muir has been considered "an inspiration to both Scots and Americans." Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, believes that Muir has become "one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity", both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he has often been quoted by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams. "Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world", writes Holmes.

 Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman, and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for many people, making his name "almost ubiquitous" in the modern environmental consciousness. According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified "the archetype of our oneness with the earth", while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was "saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism".  403  On April 21, 2013, the first John Muir Day was celebrated in Scotland, which marked the 175th anniversary of his birth, paying homage to the conservationist.

CAROLE LATIMER

No other person in America has introduced more women to the outdoor experience than Latimer. As a guide, outfitter and owner of "Call of the Wild, " Latimer has taken more than 3,000 women camping, backpacking, hiking and kayaking, many for the first time.

In the process, she has summited Mount Whitney 23 times, including rock- climbing the east face, traversed most of the Sierra Nevada, and ventured across the hemisphere, including trips to Denali, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountains.

Latimer has pioneered a unique approach to camping for women by emphasizing self-reliance, gourmet food, sleeping comfort and staying clean, such as ways to bathe in a garbage bag. By teaching Leave No Trace, she has demonstrated the ethical use of wilderness for thousands of new- comers. In addition, her wilderness meal recipes have generated a cult-like following across America.

Latimer lives in Berkeley, where her business is based.

A personal glimpse: "Women blossom when they leave behind the expectations of their everyday lives, and meet the challenge of the outdoors with the support and enthusiasm of other women."

GALEN ROWELL

Rowell, a photographer and trekker, mastered an ability to capture unrepeatable moments in the outdoors on film, and with it, won world renown for his celebration of the natural world and its beauty. He supported many Bay Area conservation groups and conferences by donating his Mountain Light photo gallery as a base for meetings and conferences.

Rowell made his first roped ascent in Yosemite Valley at age 16, the first of more than 100 new climbing routes in the Sierra. In the years that followed,

Rowell extended his adventures to the world's highest mountains on all seven continents. These included the first one-day ascents of Denali in Alaska and Kilimanjaro in Africa, and the highest summit ever gained on skis in history, Mustagh Ata, 24,757 feet, in China. He also completed a landmark 285-mile cross-county ski traverse of the Karakoram Himalaya in winter.

He captured moments from these and many other expeditions in magazines and large-format books, including the best-selling "Mountain Light," and "Bay Area Wild." Rowell and his wife, Barbara, a pilot and accomplished trekker died in a plane crash in 2002, following his induction to the Hall.

A personal glimpse: "What I do is a continuing pursuit in which the art becomes the adventure, and vice-versa."