He was a rare creature in a world filled with oversized egos—the humble badass. I remember organizing my gear in a hotel room in Ushuaia, Argentina, in November 2009, in advance of a ship-based ski trip to Antarctica, when my former schoolmate Kip rolled in from ski trekking in the Himalaya. Here he was fresh off a swashbuckling adventure, but I soon realized we’d been talking about me for 20 minutes. It was pure Kip to steer the conversation away from himself and be genuinely interested in me and my life.