Expeditionary Forces

Homo adventurous: A rare subspecies that exists somewhere in the jet stream, willing to ditch the nine-to-five hump and take it to the edge; favored habitats range from mountains to desert to Antarctic tundra; excels at mountaineering, climbing, backcountry skiing, and other remarkable feats of endurance.

Here we offer three studies of Homo adventurous and profiles of the equipment they need to survive. Our point? While you may never summit Everest or tromp across a polar ice floe, you can wield the same ice ax or wear the matching parka safe in the knowledge that, however humble your exploits, great gear is still great whether in the hands of a path-finding explorer or your garden-variety backcountry duffer.

And so, without further ado, we submit our thesis, with complete reviews of three explorers, their gear, their feats, and the rarefied worlds in which they roam:

ED VIESTURS: fast-and-light alpinist who is gunning to become the first American to knock off all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks.

PETER POTTERFIELD: globetrotting photojournalist who has retraced the footsteps of Shackleton's march across South Georgia Island, one of the epic expeditions of all time.

SUE NOTT: ice-climbing phenom who's tackled some of the world's toughest and most technically demanding pitches.