Shankar Vedantam

Then very quickly, you're deciding the plan for the day.

You're working together to say, here's where we are.

This is where we're trying to get to by this evening.

And then very quickly, we're off hiking and you're hiking for roughly 45 minutes to an hour.

And then you take a 15 minute break and that cycle continues until you reach base camp.

How much hiking were you doing each day?

Oh, geez.

Each day, I'd say maybe 10 to 15 miles a day.

Oh, my gosh.

So how many hours of hiking was this each day?

It's like eight to 10 hours a day.

Good grief.

Yeah.

I just went on a four-hour hike last weekend and I was just exhausted by the end of this four-hour hike.

You were doing eight hours every day?

Every day for 14 days.

Now, we had some days that were half days and they were like optional hikes.

So we would go and we would be by a lake and there would be an optional hike to summit a peak, for example.

And some people would go and other people would stay at base camp and do laundry or go fishing, etc.

So the second half of the expedition, there was a little bit more choice, but the first half was pretty daunting and grueling.