Hangout With the Adventurers of the Year – January 15

What does it take to ride the world’s most daunting and dangerous waves? Or walk from Siberia to Australia—completely alone?

Our 2014 Adventurers of the Year have pushed boundaries, gone to the extremes, and broken world records. What would you ask them, if you had the chance? Get ready, here’s your opportunity.

We will host our first National Geographic Adventurers of the Year Google+ Hangout on January 15, 2014, from 1 to 2 p.m. EST. Submit your questions by posting them in the comments below, or on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, or YouTube with hashtag #AdvOfYearChat.

Our Google Hangout will include these 2014 Adventurers of the Year:

• Sky runner Kilian Jornet runs up mountains, fast. His physical ability to blaze up and down technical terrain in the mountains has made him one of the most admired mountain athletes. In 2013 he ran up and down the14,692-foot Matterhorn in a record 2 hours and 52 minutes and 15,781-foot Mont Blanc in 4 hours and 57 minutes.

• Big-wave surfer Greg Long Greg Long paddles into the world’s most daunting waves. After nearly losing his life surfing at Cortes Break at the end of 2012, he came back to win the Big Wave World Tour, surfing strong but changed.

• Explorer Sarah Marquis walked solo from Siberia to Australia over three years. She spent 1,000 nights in a tent and learned many lessons about traveling alone as a woman.

• Long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad made it 110-miles from Cuba to Florida—facing sharks, jellyfish, and powerful currents—after four attempts over 35 years.

• Snowboarder Kevin Pearce was one of the world’s top competitors until he sustained a traumatic brain injury on the half pipe just before the Vancouver Olympics. His family, friends, and doctors helped him make an incredible recovery, as seen in the film The Crash Reel. Kevin is now helping brain injury survivors and trying to prevent future ones through his Love Your Brain campaign.

This is our ninth year of selecting Adventurers of the Year for their outstanding feats in exploration, adventure sports, conservation, and humanitarianism. Their stories inspire us to live fully, push our own boundaries, and follow our passions every day.

Our 2014 honorees embody the spirit of adventure in diverse ways—Amy and Dave Freeman, a couple who use adventure and technology to inspire kids to love the outdoors; Stacy Bare and Nick Watson, a pair of veterans creating community through outdoor adventure where it’s needed most; Raphael Slawinski and Ian Welsted, climbers who solved one of alpinists last great puzzles on Pakistan’s K6 West; JP Auclair, a skier reimagining his backyard and redefining his sport; Adam Ondra, a climber seeking the hardest routes; and five more incredible feats. See all 13 adventurers, then vote every day for the People’s Choice Adventurer of Year through January 31.

Each of these adventurers had to figure out how to make his or her ideas a reality. Sure, talent helps. And sponsor support. But that’s not what made their successes. They had to earn them with grit, creativity, passion, kindness, and love.

Get to know the adventurers in our interviews, photo gallery, and video—and don’t forget to vote every day for the People’s Choice.