The on-line version of Peter Potterfield's May 2005 Cover Story for National Geographic Adventure.

"With so many tantalizing trails crisscrossing the globe, any serious adventurer needs to prioritize. Which routes off the biggest payoffs for time, effort and expense. After hiking more than 5,000 miles, over six continents, author Peter Potterfield has the answers. Here's his ultimate crib sheet for the top ten trails on the planet"
— National Geographic Adventure

A thousand-pound polar bear ambles across the frozen surface of a tide pool toward the coastline of Hudson Bay. From the opposite direction, from Cape Churchill, another bear appears out of the overcast, following the rugged shore...

With a record of ascents unrivalled by any other rock climber, Lynn Hill adds the roles of mother, author and Patagonia ambassador to her climbing achievements....

A Utah rancher kept the remnants of a thousand-year-old village under wraps for 50 years until advancing age forced him to reveal his secret....

"For technical ski mountaineer Andrew Mclean, making a first descent of the Alaska Range's fearsome Mount Hunter can be seen as a logical progression in a lifetime spent seeking out "challenging" lines. Hunter, at 14,573 feet has been called "the most difficult 14,000 foot peak in North America" by Jonathan Waterman...."

"When you're heli-hiking, the helicopter becomes an integral part of every day life, perhaps even the defining factor. That Bell 212 is for only one purpose: to take us on two or three hiking trips every day. It's like cramming a season's worth of backcountry travel into just four days..."

"But what Lakpa Rita has done is, in his own quiet way, help change the very role of Sherpas. Possessing unparalleled expertise in the mountains, Lakpa is one of the only Sherpa working as a full-time mountain guide around the world..."

"This is Lappland, the remote northern region of Sweden, a place that harbors the last true wilderness in Europe... The Swedes have built a 450-kilometer-long hiking route known as Kungsleden through this big country. This "King of Trails"..."

"Almost three decades have passed since I first succumbed to the irresistible appeal of wilderness. An early hike took me to a windswept ridge in Colorado's Sangre de Cristo Range. From camp, I looked south across September slopes golden with autumn aspen..."

"In the unearthly reality of the icy fog, the approaching apparition could be anybody, perhaps even the ghost of Ernest Shackleton himself, trudging forever across this wild interior of South Georgia Island, the scene of the explorer's greatest trial, and greatest success..."

"And everybody' s trek is different. Wind-swept monasteries, surreal vistas, a friendly indigenous population, strange travelers, debilitating dysentery, dissociative reactions, and potentially lethal hypoxia await all those who make this famous journey..."

"'Is it an accident I started climbing?' he asks, smiling. 'Well, in some ways, everything in life's an accident, right? It's just sort of the path you walk down and the things you stumble into that determines what you do with your life...'"

"'What is guiding Everest?' asks Anatoli Boukreev. 'I don't know what being an Everest guide means. I am a coach, not a guide.' Anatoli Boukreev, wearing sandals and sweatpants, is sitting in the Gauri Shankar Hotel in Kathmandu next to a big paper sack of green grapes he's scored somewhere..."

"'It's a pretty simple thing. For all the complexities that exist in climbing, it's actually a very primal thing for those who do it. It's true that climbing meets some kind of basic need in me...'"