Kidney donor raises elevation and awareness

For Cloquet's Julie Samuelson, even climbing a volcano in Guatemala can feel like home.

"It got pretty serious, dealing with elevation and when the weather turned to crud," she said. "It was kind of like getting socked in by Lake Superior with the icky winds and fog."

Samuelson, 56, was in South America last month, alongside 17 other kidney donors. They were there to summit three volcanoes across seven days as part of the second One Kidney Climb. The first, in 2022, saw a team of 20 living donors hike to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.

Samuelson and the other climbers are members of th...