KILIMANJARO REGION, Tanzania — Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro is a lot of things to a lot of people.

For trail guides like August Matumaini and his team currently working for Ultimate Kilimanjaro — including assistant guide Joseph Nguma, chef Juvenal Urio, waiter Richard Lyimo and porter Lucas Lepoe — the mountain represents a lifeblood that not only fulfills a passion in their lives but supports both themselves and their families economically.

For others, the mountain represents a thrilling physical adventure or a chance to reconnect with nature.

For Bellwood-Antis graduate and Tyrone resident Lauren Otto, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro represented a dream years in the making to culminate a roller coaster of a journey that came to fruition just after sunrise on March 23, 2026 — Otto’s 40th birthday.

Trail guide August Matumaini helps Lauren Wisniewski cross a river on Mount Kilimanjaro on an expedition in March.

A dream is born

Otto returned to Blair County seven years ago looking to hit the reset button on her life after graduating from college and becoming a lawyer on the West Coast.

“When I came back from California in 2019, I was going through a really difficult time in my life which I will characterize as going through a divorce, moving back home and struggling with health issues,” Lauren said. “As part of my recovery from the emotional, physical and mental health issues I was experiencing, I started running. That became very important to me, and I progressed in it rapidly and got better.”

Otto began participating in the Blair Regional YMCA’s races and ran her first 5K at Canoe Creek before eventually advancing to running a half marathon and training for and completing the Philadelphia marathon.

“I pushed myself harder than I should have, and a year into it, I got a bad ankle injury. I was clerking for Judge (Timothy) Sullivan at the time, and another clerk recommended running books to me. It was good to read, because I couldn’t run and had a boot on with my ankle healing. I started reading it, and I remember sitting there reading about this distance runner deciding he wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and he went off and did it. I remember sitting there and thinking — I want to do that.”

Mount Kilimanjaro expedition members (from left) Marc Wisniewski, Lauren Wisniewski, Kristen Otto and Michael Boytim completed the Lemosho route on their trek to the peak. The route is the one most recommended for American hikers who come from low elevations.

For a couple years, the dream was just that — until a trip with her sister Kristen inspired action.

“When Kristen celebrated her 40th birthday and we went on a cruise with her, I realized I had never even thought about doing anything for my 40th birthday,” Lauren said. “I asked myself if I could do anything in the world, what would it be? Immediately my instinct was to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I knew if I had the resources, ability and support that I could do it and wanted to train for that.”

Finding a support system

Not long before her sister’s birthday cruise, Lauren met Marc Wisniewski — a man that shared her passion for the outdoors and adventure.

“It was so encouraging to me — and I say this with love — to meet someone as crazy as I am,” Lauren said. “On our fourth date, he asked me to get up at 4 a.m. and put headlamps on and go for a hike in Barree. It was just so refreshing to be with someone that had the same zest for life that I do and the same adventurous spirit. We were really able to fuel each other. That’s one of the things that made me fall in love with him.”

As Mount Kilimanjaro rises in the distance, tents belonging to expedition members dot the landscape.

Planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro intensified and in December 2024, Lauren was ready to make it official.

“The few days before Christmas leading up to New Year’s that year were such an incredible mix of so many positive emotions,” Lauren said. “I was so excited when we booked the trip. I had been doing research for over a year and looking at companies. One of the things that made me choose Ultimate Kilimanjaro was that they did private climbs, and they would allow us to pick the date that we wanted to summit on. I was just so excited that it was finally a reality that we had booked it. It had been this concept for over a year. To finally have something where we had a date and a contract, I was so incredibly excited.”

With her summit date locked in for her 40th birthday, Marc and Lauren committed not just to the trip but to each other a couple days later.

“I was feeling all of that excitement, and then Marc surprised me so much on Christmas when he proposed to me,” Lauren said. “I was not expecting it. It was one of the most thrilling moments of my life. He did it perfectly on Christmas morning with just him and (their dog) Ranger. I felt on top of the world — and ready to climb there too.”

Lauren and Marc got married on a mountain in Sedona, Arizona, on Oct. 1 last year and used their honeymoon to prepare for Mount Kilimanjaro with some high-altitude hikes.

Mount Kilimanjaro rises above the landscape in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania.

“I am so grateful for that honeymoon,” Lauren said. “I had only done really big hikes around Pennsylvania before Sedona. They do not have high-elevation hiking around here. We did some really challenging hikes in Sedona such as Bear Mountain, which is one of the most difficult level hikes in Sedona. It was very challenging with rock scrambles, granite slabs tilted on an angle that you didn’t have grips to walk across and three false summits. After we got done with that hike, I felt like I could do anything.”

Rain plagues season

With Lauren and her group engaged in the final stages of training throughout February, the company they planned to use to serve as a guide up the mountain — Ultimate Kilimanjaro — was experiencing its worst February of business in years.

Usually part of the dry season, this year a large amount of rain had fallen all over the routes used by Matumaini and his team leading to cancellations of trips and losses of profit.

For years, the mountain has helped fuel the local economy and develop advances in both health and education.

“The clients who have come to climb have helped fund hospitals and schools in our village,” Matumaini said. “Growing up in a village with that, I wanted to give back and do this to not only help clients achieve their dreams but continue to help our village.”

Matumaini, now 35, was one of just 2% of students his age to graduate from the college level of education and was set up for a career in business. But after just one week of banking he decided to leave that profession and follow his father and grandfather’s path by working as a guide on Mount Kilimanjaro.

“For me, climbing Kilimanjaro is part of my DNA,” Matumaini said. “Because of that, I do not do this because there are no options. I chose this, because I want it, and I like to see a lot of clients making it to the top of Africa safely. I grew up with the help of money coming from Kilimanjaro, and my village, Marangu, has benefited a lot from Kilimanjaro in general. The Marangu route is the mother route of Kilimanjaro and was the first route people took.”

As a child, Matumaini saw plenty of his father, despite his heavy workload on the mountain.

“We would always be looking forward to him coming back,” Matumaini said. “If you look at my father’s time on the mountain, they were maybe climbing 25 times a year. My father was working mostly with people from Europe and not many Americans. Coming from Europe, they were coming from regions with a lot of mountains, so they did not need acclimatization and can do it in five days. So, if you do 25 five-day climbs, that’s only 125 days which is not too many days a year. The remaining 200 or so days, he was able to spend at home.”

But this season, Matumaini has been spending time at home he planned to work. His next scheduled climb was March 17 — Lauren’s climb — but he expected Ultimate Kilimanjaro to encourage the cancellation of the trip like it had many others throughout the early part of the year.

Final preparations

Not taking the trip never crossed Lauren’s mind.

She knew when she began the search for a company nearly three years ago that her birthday — March 23 — would fall during the rainy season and was prepared to deal with that.

What caught her off guard, however, was exactly how much equipment she and her group needed to purchase to make the trip successful.

“I thought that I had prepared for everything,” Lauren said. “The gear ended up being way more of a task than I had anticipated it would be. Ultimate Kilimanjaro was amazing in providing us with a checklist of things we needed. There were so many things I didn’t have, because I had never done this type of trip before.”

Thankfully, Lauren’s husband Marc had plenty of experience as a former ultrarunner and outdoorsman before an ankle injury forced him to scale back.

“I was able to give some advice on what type of equipment would be good and what type of boots and socks,” Marc said. “I know some of the little nuances to help have a better day when you’re on your feet all day because I have done stuff like this before. I have experience with what type of jackets we need, the trekking poles that can make it more comfortable and how to set those up to lessen your pain.”

Dream in sight

On March 13, Lauren and her group began their nearly 30-hour trip to Moshi, Tanzania, with a flight from Washington, D.C., to Paris and then on to Kilimanjaro International Airport.

As the clouds parted after Lauren reached the hotel she was staying at until Matumaini’s group picked her up Tuesday, she caught her first in-person glance of Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance.

“It brought me to tears,” Lauren said. “I was just so incredibly excited. I remember grabbing

Kristen, pulling her over and telling her that’s what we were going to climb. We were both in disbelief, but I was just thrilled every time I caught a glimpse of it. Every time I saw it, I thought about how that was what I had been dreaming about for so many years.”

Excitement builds

Lauren’s arrival in Moshi is not just exciting for her and her group.

Matumaini is putting his team together for a climb he never expected to get the chance to do.

“A lot of us have been together for 10 or 15 years,” Matumaini said. “Because of that, we have built bonds. It’s always easier to work with friends. It’s more like a family.”

Matumaini had no idea Lauren’s birthday coincided with her choice of date to summit, and it finally made sense why there was no cancellation.

It’s not the first time he’s seen determination from clients who achieved success by overcoming much more than rain.

“I had a client who stepped on a bomb in Iraq,” Matumaini said. “He lost both of his legs and had prosthetic legs but still wanted to do this. Taking him to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro was one of my greatest achievements. I have also had older clients, one was 77, and he was struggling from the first day. We weren’t sure he would make it, but helping him reach the summit was something I was so happy to do.”

Matumaini and his staff picked Lauren and her group up and began the transportation to Mount Kilimanjaro in a packed bus full of equipment and two groups of people that did not know each other.

Matumaini made a final phone call to his wife on the trip before everyone lost service on the mountain, and Lyimo — the group’s waiter for the trip — flipped through photos on his phone and stared at a picture of his 3-year-old son, Meshach.

The trip back eight days later was in stark contrast to the silence and nerves that accompanied the initial drive.

“You could just tell these people loved their job and loved the mountain,” Lauren said. “On the way there, they were strangers. I had really tried hard to learn a little bit of Swahili, but I was afraid to speak it with them to not be disrespectful. I was hoping someone could teach me, but then we spent eight days with them, and they became not just friends but family — especially Richard and August. We’re riding back, and Richard kept tapping me on the shoulder and he’s showing me coffee plantations and everyone is talking about looking forward to seeing their families.”

Lyimo — who repeated the phrase “kula maisha” or “enjoy the life” — throughout the trip developed into someone Lauren considered family by the end of the journey.

“I had an intense connection with Richard, because he prayed with us and we shared our faith together,” Lauren said. “That made it so strong.”

Trek begins

Following a boxed lunch at the Lemosho Gate, the hikers began their eight-day, seven-night trip up Mount Kilimanjaro through the first of several regions — the rainforest — in which temperatures can reach higher than 90 degrees.

Rain, which would follow the group throughout the trip, made its first appearance but was held in check by the cover of the forest. However, its impact on the trail over the past couple months was evident as several walkways were washed out by flowing water.

“I looked around. I was in the middle of Africa, and my dream was coming true,” Lauren said. “Every single time I did that, I realized there was no place I wanted to be than there, even if I was in pouring rain. Having that experience, connected to nature and the people around me and God — I wouldn’t have rather been anywhere else.”

The trek, known as the Lemosho route, is the one most recommended for American hikers who come from low elevations.

“You need to choose the best trail,” Matumaini said. “The Lemosho route of eight or nine days is the one we recommend. For most of America, people are coming from low elevation. You need much more time to stay at high elevation so that you can get used to it. Secondly, you need to train. Sadly, it is written in so many places that anyone can do Kilimanjaro.

“But I have seen people suffer who have not trained. It’s not easy. If you do not train at all, you’re going to have a really, really hard time. If you are a general athlete that runs or hikes and goes to the gym a few times a week, you might come to Kilimanjaro and make it, but if you never do any kind of exercise and people tell you that you can do it — no, it’s not that easy. You will have a bad experience of being tired, exhausted and angry. It could end up being a terrible experience.”

During the first day of hiking, Matumaini and his team studied the habits of the group and developed the pace throughout the rest of the trek based on their performance.

Rather than be a silent guide, Matumaini’s passion for the mountain was evident as he shared stories, sang songs and pointed out wildlife and nature throughout the hike.

“I felt like I had a kindred spirit with August,” Lauren said. “It was so transformational for me to see his attitude. The rainy season came early this year. Normally it’s the middle to end of March, which we would have hit anyway, but it came in February. I didn’t know until they told us that companies had been telling people to cancel their trips. I think there was one point where we were in a torrential downpour, and August had his poncho on. I told him I was sorry we made him come out in the rain — and he said he didn’t care if it was raining, snowing or windy. Being on the mountain is part of who he was and it just meant he got to have another climb. That was so emotionally fulfilling to hear him say that and see someone be where they want to be in a job that they love.”

The group hiked to Mti Mkubwa Camp at an elevation of 9,498 feet and spent their first night camping on the mountain to a chorus of animals serenading them throughout their sleep.

From there was a 5.5-mile hike with challenging terrain and bouldering sections through the end of the rainforest and both the Heather and Moorland zones.

Throughout each change in climate, Matumaini advised changes in clothing, hiking style and how to approach each obstacle.

“They were top notch,” Marc said. “They did everything and anything to help us out. They helped with every aspect of the hike to make it easier so that we could focus on hiking and getting to the top.”

The third day brought the hikers from Shira I camp to Moir Hut and the fourth was a trip to Lava Tower at 15,190 feet — a day that was later revealed to the group to be the one that the highest percentage of travelers must return home and leave the mountain due to elevation change — even more so than summit night.

Following a lunch to test the hikers’ appetites at high altitude, Lauren and her group descended back to Barranco Camp and shifted between there and Karanga Camp over the next couple days in semi-desert and alpine desert zones to grow more accustomed to the elevation before hiking up to Barafu Camp at 15,331 feet to prepare for summit night.

Into the darkness

Following six days of a similar routine, the hikers attempted to sleep throughout the evening before an 11 p.m. wakeup call that signaled the start of what would be a 10-hour trek through darkness with only the light of a headlamp to guide them on the way to Uhuru Peak and the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro at 19,341 feet.

For days the biggest concern for the group had been testing oxygen levels, heart rate monitoring and desperately trying to keep clothes they needed for summit night dry.

The final stretch offered a completely different challenge.

Following an initial bouldering effort in darkness, the crew began an extremely slow trek through snow — both on the ground and blowing sideways at a high rate of wind.

Before long, the hikers’ water bladders froze and the hoods they wore over their heads to protect from the wind became frozen in place.

While the experience was jarring for some in the group obviously making their first trek to the summit, Matumaini remained calm as he pursued his 295th career trip to the peak.

“They just took such good care of us,” Lauren said. “The biggest thing for me was that (assistant guide) Joseph offered to take my backpack after four hours. I was so grateful for that. Even though I had my pack as light as it could be and had it rigged around my waist the way it was supposed to be, it for some reason was really getting to my shoulders. It was causing me more pain than anticipated, so that was such a relief for them to take it.

“We had these huge mittens on, and when we would stop for a break, I couldn’t do anything with them on. Our hoods were frozen. There was snow all over us, but August kept telling us not to take our mittens off so our hands wouldn’t get wet. Their experience of how they knew what would be best for us and how they helped us was so special.”

The hours of darkness and slow pace played havoc with the minds of the hikers as they struggled mentally to keep focus as much as any physical strain came into play.

Though the night was challenging, Matumaini had been through much worse.

“I had a client with a severe allergic reaction, and there were no helicopters,” Matumaini said. “Their airways were contracting. An epipen only works for 15 minutes. Fortunately we usually have a lot of oxygen cylinders with us, and we forced air into his body using a lot of oxygen. We got him into a stretcher and sent him down to Moshi safely, which is one of the things we were very happy about.”

Midway through the night, Matumaini and his crew applied cramp-ons to the hikers’ shoes to provide better grip while traveling up the snow and ice.

“It was surreal,” Lauren said. “There were moments throughout the darkness we went through up until the summit that I said to myself that I hoped I would remember for the rest of my life. I prayed a lot throughout the trek. I prayed when it was raining and when it was cold. I wondered what the weather would be like on summit night. I felt God was telling me to wait and see what He would have for me.”

Just as patience began to wear thin, an answer to Lauren’s prayers appeared.

“We were climbing in the dark, and the clouds parted so we could see all the stars. Everyone was quiet, but August was leading us singing a Swahili hymn,” Lauren said. “I was looking at the stars, and you could see the glow of the start of the sunrise, and I remember thinking — I will remember this the rest of my life. It was so peaceful. I felt so connected to God, nature and the people around me. We got a brilliant sunrise on the way to the top.”

Just before the true summit of Mount Kilimanjaro is Stella Point, which is the final stop before circling around the rim of Kilimanjaro’s volcanic crater to Uhuru Peak.

“When we got to Stella Point, we were frozen. The sign was covered in ice, and you couldn’t see what it said,” Lauren said. “Then we started walking up, and everything cleared up. God gave us a rainbow, and we got to the summit. There was no one there. The sun came out, the clouds went away and you could see for miles. It was an incredible experience to see all of God’s creation and be in this place I had dreamed of for so long.”

Despite the frigid temperature, tears streamed down Lauren’s face.

“It was epic — a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Marc said. “I never thought I would get to do something like that. To see the smile on her face and see her experiencing absolute joy was amazing.”

As the group basked in its achievement and posed for photos by the peak’s sign, Matumaini began singing “Happy Birthday” to Lauren as everyone danced in celebration. Following the descent back to Barafu Camp, Lauren was met with a celebration from the entire Ultimate Kilimanjaro staff and a birthday cake that was made on the side of the mountain at more than 15,000 feet.

“I was so touched and surprised,” Lauren said. “The amount of thoughtfulness that went into those actions was just astounding to me. Sometimes I just have moments that made me say — ‘I love people,’ and those were those moments. I love genuine connections with people. You could tell they were genuinely happy for me and wanted to do something special. I have never met so many people who could offer genuine thoughtfulness and show so much care to someone who had been a stranger just days before.”

Follow your dreams

The final day and a half on the mountain the group struggled to process everything that had played out in front of them.

The trail down nearly the entire mountain served as both a distraction and a test of their quad muscles before they rejoined Matumaini and his staff for the bus transport back to their hotel where everything finally began to sink in even as Lauren began toying with the idea of planning her next big adventure.

“What I hope is that at least part of this story inspires other people to dream big and not second guess themselves,” Lauren said. “If there’s something that you have really dreamed of, I am certain there’s a way to make it into a reality. One of the experiences that was frustrating to me was how much we were met with negativity or resistance about people from around here not doing this type of thing or the training that was needed. I would encourage people not to listen to that negativity and to follow their hearts to go out into the world and inspire other people to do great things.”