Mountain men

Executive: Evan Berlin, founder of Berlin-Patten, a law firm with offices in Sarasota, Venice and Lakewood Ranch; Jesse Biter, co-founder of Dealers United, a Sarasota-based auto industry buying group; and Jamie Ebling, a partner with Berlin-Patten.

Diversion: Berlin, Biter and Ebling, close friends for 10 years, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in September. Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, Africa, is the highest freestanding mountain in the world, at 19,341 feet above sea level (Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, stands 29,029 feet above sea level). The trip, booked by Ryan Hilton at Sarasota-based Admiral Travel International, was a 16-day journey. The climbers flew from Sarasota to New York on Sept. 21. The next day they flew to Tanzania. Then, after a rest and a day to get acclimated to the heights, the real fun began. They went five days up the mountain, two days down and spent four days on an African safari. Then they headed home. “I don't think any of us realized how tough this would be,” Berlin says. “I don't think we can ever do anything else in our life like this.”

Life challenge: Biter read Zappos founder Tony Hsieh's book, “Delivering Happiness,” in which the celebrated entrepreneur writes about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and other experiences. Biter and Hsieh later met for dinner in Las Vegas, where they talked about the journey. “That's what made me want to do it,” Biter says.

Tough training: All three climbers kept up their workouts at the gym and with personal trainers. They also added a wrinkle: anything with elevation. That meant climbing stairs in Biter's high-rise downtown Sarasota condo building and hiking at Celery Fields, a wildlife preserve in Sarasota, east of Interstate 75. They carried backpacks with 30-pound weights on the walks, which sometimes lasted several hours. Still, Florida isn't great training ground to simulate mountain climbing. Says Berlin: “There was very little we could do to prepare for it.”