Operation Denali Awarded Nat Geo’s Adventurer of the Year

Lieutenant Colonel Marc Hoffmeister organized a team of wounded veterans to climb Denali in an effort to raise awareness of severely injured service men and women.

In early 2008 his wife, Gayle, announced that she was going to climb Denali, with or without her husband. “I said, ‘Not without me, you aren’t!’” Hoffmeister recalls. In the weeks that followed, his sense of purpose returned. “I figured that if I’m sitting here dealing with this hardship, there must be others doing the same thing,” he says. “I wanted to find them and get over it together.”

On June 16th, three members of the team successfully climbed the mountain and, in what may be a first for Denali (or any alpine mountain for that matter) one of the climbers formally re-enlisted in the Army while on the summit. This month National Geographic recognized these accomplishments by awarding Marc an “Adventurer of the Year” award.

Thank you for the service, and the inspiration!

You can read more about this accomplishment by picking up this month’s ‘Best of Adventure’ in newsstands, or by checking it out online, here: Best of Adventure

You can also visit the Operation’s website, here: Operation Denali