Galen Rowell is venturing this week to Antarctica for three weeks on a photo trek. Ed Rice is returning after three weeks in Venezuela, fly fishing unknown waters. Carole Latimer is heading to Hawaii, guiding a week-long hiking and kayaking expedition. Brian Robinson is finally coming to terms with the reality of hiking 7,200 miles to complete the Triple Crown of America's three greatest trails in a single year.

John Muir, if he were alive, would probably want to join all of these adventures, but only after perhaps snow-shoeing across Yosemite Valley, then writing an essay for the Sierra Club, which he founded. These five people all share a paramount scope of outdoor adventure, as well as a special ability to inspire thousands of others in the outdoors.

That is why they have been selected as the charter members of the California Outdoors Hall of Fame, to be officially awarded next Saturday at the International Sportsmen's Exposition in San Mateo.

No other person in America has introduced more women to the outdoor experience than Carole Latimer. As a guide, outfitter and owner of "Call of the Wild, " Latimer has taken more than 3,000 women camping, backpacking, hiking and kayaking, many for the first time.

In the process, she has summited Mount Whitney 23 times, including rock-climbing the east face, traversed most of the Sierra Nevada, and ventured across the hemisphere, including trips to Denali, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountains.

Latimer has pioneered a unique approach to camping for women by emphasizing self-reliance, gourmet food, sleeping comfort and staying clean, such as ways to bathe in a garbage bag.

By teaching Leave No Trace, she has demonstrated the ethical use of wilderness for thousands of new-comers. In addition, her wilderness meal recipes have generated a cult-like following across America.

Latimer lives in Berkeley, where her business is based. A personal glimpse: "Women blossom when they leave behind the expectations of their everyday lives, and meet the challenge of the outdoors with the support and enthusiasm of other women."

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Find out more about Carole Latimer's gourmet cookbook for campers, Wilderness Cuisine.

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