After working for a few years, Adam Sandlin ’05 returned to graduate school and completed his degree at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in May 2011. To appropriately cap the two-year Duke experience, Adam and two friends decided a trip was in order. Since Duke had won the NCAA National Championship in basketball the previous spring, they needed something “pretty intense” to top that experience.
So, why not climb a mountain? The trio headed to Mount Kilimanjaro for an incredible experience, hiking through five vegetation zones from rain forest to glacier and camping in a different spot each night of the six-day hike.
“We expected summit day to be physically challenging but what we didn’t expect was the mental challenge of reaching the summit,” Adam said. “Our water froze halfway up the summit; we were climbing through the coldest and windiest part of the day (midnight to 6 a.m.), and the air was so thin that we had to take multiple breaths for each step. After six and a half hours, we finally reached the summit in time to watch the sun rise from the tallest mountain in Africa … which was pretty spectacular.”
The friends rewarded themselves with a four-day safari through the Serengeti and other national parks before heading back to the real world.
When not climbing mountains, Adam is a senior consultant with Deloitte Consulting’s Strategy & Operations practice in New York City.
