Mandy Moore, who we last saw redoing her (amazing, lovely) kitchen, shocked us this week by showing up on the other side of the world: Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
The actress detailed her trek in a series of Instagram postings, stating she had wanted to climb the 19,341-foot peak—highest—since Africa’s she was 18. It’s remarkable that she was able to accomplish such a fantastic dream. Are you joining us on our journey? Taylor Goldsmith, her fiancé (hey, nothing like a little high-altitude bonding).
For most people, spring break entails lounging on the beach with a drink under a little umbrella.
However, Mandy Moore is not like the majority of individuals. She opted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro during her vacation from filming “This Is Us”. There’s no big deal.
Moore traveled with Taylor Goldsmith, her fiancé, and a group of pals. On March 23, she began her expedition and shared a snapshot of her climbing squad on Instagram. She added, “I’ve dreamed about seeing [the mountain] and doing this since I was 18.”
She also tweeted images from the ascent when the expedition concluded and she regained service. “With a couple of my dearest friends, I lived out one of the most gratifying and hard experiences of my life,” she wrote.
Moore claimed that reaching the mountain’s peak was extremely difficult due to bad weather, frigid temperatures, and complete darkness. “Reaching the genuine summit’s threshold was more emotional and overpowering than I could have imagined,” she wrote. “There’s nothing like discovering that we’re all capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for to make you feel empowered.”
“I felt really emotional when I first saw the mountain, something I didn’t expect.” I was scared since there were so many unknown variables in the ascent, and I was concerned about developing altitude sickness.”
“I saw the IMAX movie Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa when I was 18 years old,” actress Mandy Moore recalls from the back of a cab in New York City, where she has just arrived after a few days in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. “I left the theater thinking, ‘One day, I’ll do it.'” When outfitter Eddie Bauer asked the This Is Us star where she would like to travel, she had no hesitation.
Moore admits, “I’m not really adventurous or outdoorsy.” “I’d never tented or slept in a tent before, but ascending the mountain felt doable for some reason.”
In fact, the journey from the base to the summit of Kili (as it’s affectionately known by those who’ve reached the summit) is comparable to traveling from the equator to Antarctica in a matter of days, as it passes through five different ecological zones, ranging from rain forest to arctic, with temperatures ranging from 90 degrees Fahrenheit to below freezing.
While it’s common for actors to spend months preparing for parts and hours in makeup—Moore frequently spends three hours in the hair-and-makeup trailer to portray the 68-year-old version of her character Rebecca—she never went full Hollywood method actor when it came to preparing for the climb.
“On the night of our ascent to the summit, we woke up at 11 pm (after a few hours of napping) to enjoy a few nervous minutes together with a cup of coffee before it was time to gear up in my warmest layers and begin the nearly 8-hour trek to Africa’s highest point- 19,341 ft,” Moore wrote on Instagram.
“We trekked through rain, sleet, and snow in utter darkness, when everything on our person seemed to freeze (water bottles, backpacks, our eyelashes, hair, fingers, toes, etc…) Surprisingly, I’ve never been more driven to take on such a physical task, but the combination of weariness and bitter cold made it far more difficult than any of us had anticipated. All of that aside, hitting the genuine summit’s threshold was more emotional and overpowering than I could have imagined. Kilimanjaro expects a lot from those who walk its paths. You don’t have an option but to appear. And we succeeded.”
“There’s nothing more powerful than learning we’re all capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for,” she said in her summit photo description. Hear, hear, hear.
Moore explains, “I didn’t do any substantial preparation because the chance came up quite abruptly.” “I did a lot of research and discovered that the most common reason people don’t reach the summit is due to altitude sickness, so I wasn’t too concerned about putting in a lot of effort.” Moore, like many Angelenos, is a regular hiker, so she took advantage of the chance to break in a new pair of hiking boots in the weeks leading up to the journey.
Mandy Moore shares photographs from her recent trek to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro on her Instagram page.
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