Mandy Moore Says Hiking Mt. Everest Brings Her 'Out of My Comfort Zone: 'It's Invigorating!'
She is currently on hiatus from her hit show, This Is Us, but Mandy Moore isn’t sitting around wasting time.
The 35-year-old actress soon heads to Nepal to climb to Mt. Everest’s base camp. The trek, led by Melissa Arnot Reid, an Eddie Bauer Alpine guide and pal of Moore’s, will take up to nine days on the way in and another couple of days on the way out and is part of Eddie Bauer’s Why I Hike campaign.
“I’m very excited,” Moore tells PEOPLE. “It doesn’t scare me. It’s invigorating! The moments that you push yourself out of my comfort zone are so fulfilling and nourishing.”
Moore says that hiking has been “part of her connective tissue in my life for so long,” but she’s recently amped up the adventure element, beginning with a trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro last year.
“That trip really solidified things for me,” says Moore. “I discovered my inner mountain girl!”
And expert Reid, who met Moore last year and traveled with her to hike in New Zealand last month, says she appreciates her new friend’s “really good attitude.”
“She has a passion for the outdoors and really pushing herself,” says Reid. “And she’s so open and generous. That’s a really enjoyable person to travel with.”
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Moore’s husband, rocker Taylor Goldsmith, whom she wed last year, also joined on the New Zealand trip, along with friends Chase Weideman and Ashley and Jenn Streicher.
“I roped Taylor into hiking,” Moore says. “On our honeymoon [in Chile] I was like, ‘Babe, we’re going to hike every day,’ and he was a really good sport about it. It’s a through line in our relationship now. And he totally keeps up!”