20 Breathtaking Facts About Extreme Sports & Athletes

Tim Macartney-Snape is one of the first mountaineers to climb Everest without oxygen. Afterward, someone said to him "You didn't climb Everest. You only climbed the top part." So he went down to the beach in India and re-did the whole thing.

Erden Eruç took 5 years and 11.5 days of rowing, kayaking, hiking, and cycling to become the first person in history to complete an entirely solo and entirely human-powered circumnavigation of the globe. The route he followed was 66,299 km (41,196 miles) long.

In 1968, big wave surfer Eddie Aikau was selected to be the first lifeguard at Waimea beach in Oahu. Not a single person died during his time as a lifeguard and he rescued over 500 people.

In 1989, a scuba diver named William Lamm was sucked up by an intake pipe of a nuclear power plant, dragged over 1,600 feet, and deposited in one of the reactor cooling ponds. He lived.

In 2016, a Forest Service Officer named Brad Treat took a blind turn while mountain biking at 30 mph. He crashed into a large grizzly bear that was sitting on the trail and was immediately mauled to death in response to the collision.

Erik Weihenmayer is a blind rock climber who uses prosthetic "eyes" that translate images to electrical impulses he feels on his tongue. He became the only blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest on May 25, 2001.

On October 23, 1999, BASE jumper and stuntwoman Jan Davis made a protest jump off El Capitan in Yosemite National Park to lift Yosemite's BASE jumping ban. She died in the process. The ban remains intact.

A surfer named Todd Endris was once attacked by a white shark. Dolphins came to his rescue, by forming a protective ring around him, keeping the shark from chomping off the flesh from his leg to the bone, and by getting him to shore safely.

American rock climber Alex Honnold holds the speed record for free climbing up a 2,900 foot Yosemite Valley mountain called "The Nose" in just 2 hours and 23 minutes without the use of ropes, safety harnesses or any other protective gear.

One of the longest canoe trip every taken was 12,182 miles from Winnipeg, Canada all the way to the mouth of the Amazon River in Belém, Brazil. It took a father and his sons, 23 months to complete the journey.