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Comment by NikolaeVarius | Hacker News Reader

I'm having a very hard time taking this seriously since its a extremely long article about a simple fully managed 2 day hiking trip to go 18 miles, which any healthy adult should be able to do in 1 day with a full pack.

At first, I was willing to give the writer the benefit of the doubt, but when I realized that the writer was getting Wood/Food/Water dropoffs regularly, is when I realized this thing is definitely for sheltered rich people.

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Also the person camped/slept in a dry river bed which is one of the worst possible places to camp. A flash flood or torrential rain uphill can wash him out in seconds.. and I can see even the company had recommended him to sleep. Really ignorant to put him at risk like that. Always follow the river but maintain distance.

You can see here how dry river beds flood https://youtu.be/oWHvi_tW-rg?t=206

Some snakes in Africa also prefer dry river beds. I would not be surprised if that is the case for scorpions too.

It’s an easy source for getting water too. Not only that, coming worldwide via global warming:

Intense storms in Egypt unleashed a massive swarm of scorpions from their nests, stinging 450 people and killing 3: https://www.yahoo.com/news/intense-storms-egypt-unleashed-ma...

Hmm, I go backpacking often on six day trips into wilderness, often off trail at 12K. We're beat by 10mi and start slogging past 13mi. And we dialed our gear down to ultralight (15lb packs with canisters). I think you may be projecting your own fitness level onto everyone else. 18 miles over 2 days is perfectly reasonable for me if you're not going to the gym 3-4x a week and training for 10Ks and marathons.

In the UK older high school kids will go on Duke of Edinburgh expeditions where Gold is the highest level, and they are going 14 miles a day carrying packs. That is young, healthy 17-year-olds. I deliberately didn't do it because I wasn't fit enough.

I'm only 38 now but I wouldn't keep up with those youngsters. 10 miles is a good day's walk for a normal person, or 6 miles for a pleasure walk.

I consider myself a healthy adult and I think 2 days for 18 miles sounds commendable.

The amount of elevation change does matter, too. I am talking about both the difference between the trip elevation and his normal living elevation as well as the total elevation change within those 18 miles.

The Atlas mountains doesn't even break 14k feet, and there is no mention of an attempt to summit.

If you're not even carrying your own food/water 18 miles should be a piece of cake.

18 miles is ~30 km (for us, people who use the other measuring system), which, computed roughly, gives me a 6-7 hours walk. Yes, it's expected of a person who goes on trips regularly to see that as a piece of cake but for us, town folks, it might not be that easy, in any case, not a piece of cake.

Agreed, I'd consider myself a very passionate walker but 10-15km a day in hilly terrain is pushing it for me. 30km....maybe on flat terrain.

Of course. I walked four miles in an hour and half for this game called pikmin something but it was in a flat, suburban sidewalk in Colorado. I think most people can easily walk a mile every half hour all day under these conditions. Probably will even be fun if you have someone to talk to along the way.

A trail on a hilly terrain is a completely different story.

Everything is in the elevation. I'm rather fit, used to be in the army nearly ten years ago. These days I hike now and then. Last weekend I went on a wee tip, 25 km and 1400 m elevation; it took me 9 hours, not including my lunch break. Only carrying water for the day, the said lunch, dry clothes and a bit of gear ; probably a 10 kg pack. Mild weather and decent track. On flat ground, I would have halved that time.

Nine miles of hiking per day is not gruelling but it's enough to feel like you did something.

I did half-dome in Yosemite many years ago, and if I remember it's about 7 miles one-way with ~4000-5000 feet of elevation change. But the trail is mostly quite good, and it's as much as I'd want to hike in a day.

For a two day trip, especially if the trail is rough, 18 miles sounds about right.

For 30k though, you purchase the right to sue the shit out of the organizer if things go south. So, you know, really roughing it.

30k for this? Such an insane ripoff

This is for people who are so rich that they've lost the ability to handle anything practical on their own.

Not the ability, but mostly the desire. It’s tremendously liberating to just have a good EA, travel agent or concierge service taking care of everything for you.

Looking for flights and arranging other practical stuff is work, no reason to do it yourself if you’re filthy rich.

I’m still not really sure why this particular package costs 30k, Black Tomato seems to have some unusually high margins for luxury travel. We’d probably arrange this kind of an excursion for much less money (as a part of a larger holiday, which would cost at least 30k), but I’m not sure about the full extent of the support team they offer.

The danger is that they can completely lose touch, and depending on what they do, that can make them worse at their job.

I know of CEO that made several blunders leading to reduced retention that I’m convinced were at least partly a result of this dynamic.

Yep. Marrakech is a cheap flight from London, and if you want to go to the Atlas Mountains you can probably find a guide to take you individually for $30, maybe $35 if they had to agree to walk behind you so you could feel like you were all alone.

Then again, the sort of person that buys these trips would probably be upsold $30k worth of carpets by the end of it.

You can pay a float/bush plane pilot to drop you off in the middle of nowhere in Alaska or BC for less than $1000 (depending on where) and have a great trip.

30km of hiking on is definitely not something that any healthy adult would handle in a day (especially carrying a extra 10kg pack). That's a good 7 hours of walking - at the very least my feet would struggle with that.

I think that's pretty reasonable. It's not like you are previously occupied, you just keep walking.

It might be useful to know what you and the grandparent comment consider healthy though, you could both have very different ideas of base level health.

Bro. I can cover that distance in under 4 hours but the fun isn’t in that. The fun is in not knowing anything and then having to figure it out.

It’s like saying escape rooms are easy. They’re meant to be challenging to the level of the player.

> when I realized this thing is definitely for sheltered rich people.

Isn't that a basic requirement of a luxury vacation?

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