Paul Ferguson with his late training partner, Maverick. Last month, Ferguson made it to the summit of Mount Rainier, a feat he first attempted more than 15 years ago. There, he distributed Maverick's ashes.
Posted on 08/05/2007 12:17:36 PM PDT by Dysart
Just climbing to the summit of Mount Rainier would be triumph enough for most people. But for Paul Ferguson, the achievement was symbolic of victory over past failed attempts and a life-threatening disease -- and a final goodbye to a beloved dog.
It's been a journey for the 42-year-old Mansfield man, a Lockheed Martin engineer, UT-Arlington doctoral student, mountaineering hobbyist and cancer survivor.
But let us backtrack and begin with Mount Rainier, an active volcano in Washington state that soars to 14,410 feet. It's a snowcapped postcard mountain for which Seattle and Tacoma residents build their homes so they'll have a view of it from at least a window or two.
Ferguson first got a good look at it in 1992 while a civilian employee of the Army. A friend suggested they climb the mountain.
"I said, 'Sure,' not having the slightest idea of what I was getting myself in for," Ferguson recalls. "But as soon as I saw Mount Rainier, I knew it would be an object of fascination with me for life."
Though Ferguson was young and fit, he wasn't fit enough.
"I didn't make it," he says simply. "I got blisters on my feet, then blisters on the blisters."
Even in summer the snowpack can begin as low as 6,000 feet on Rainier. At 11,200 feet, on the second day of the climb, Ferguson had to turn back.
"I was devastated," he recalls. "For sure I didn't realize what level of physical conditioning is required for high-altitude climbing."
Ferguson was determined to give it another try. By 1994 he had a new training partner: a high-energy yellow Labrador named Maverick.
"We trained together, got in shape together," Ferguson says. "For my wife, Beth, and me, he was almost like a first child."
Undaunted by his first defeat, Ferguson gave Rainier a second try in 1994, this time with professional guides.
"I had been training with a professional triathlete and was in the best condition of my life," he says.
But the first part of the climb, from a base camp at 5,000 feet to a final assault camp at 11,200 feet, took 13 hours.
"I was exhausted, then developed altitude sickness," Ferguson says. "I had to turn back again."
He would have given it yet another try had he not run into a foe considerably more dangerous than Mount Rainier -- cancer.
"That put everything else on hold," he says.
Treatment put the cancer in remission. He's now gone more than five years without a recurrence, though the treatment left him unable to father children. He and his wife have adopted a boy and a girl.
That new family and the challenge of doctoral studies put Rainier on the back burner. Until something happened with Maverick.
The dog grew ill, lingered for six months, then died. Ferguson had him cremated. But something about the dog's death resurrected the old challenge of climbing Rainier. This time he would take Maverick with him and let his old training partner look from the mountaintop.
On July 5 he found himself in a party of seven climbers and four professional guides once again climbing his old nemesis. And once again, the beginning was not auspicious.
"Within 20 minutes I felt my feet burning," Ferguson recalls. "I taped them, but within a couple of hours I had blisters again."
It would have been smart to quit. He didn't.
"My church was praying for me, and my friends were rooting for me," he says. "I also had the ashes of Maverick with me, and I could see visions of our running and training together."
The climb leader made it clear to Ferguson that if he wanted to continue, he had to both keep up and pose no danger to the rest of the climbers.
"It hurt -- hurt a lot -- but I somehow gutted it up," Ferguson says.
At 7 a.m. July 8, after three days of climbing, he crossed a final ridge into a volcanic bowl of surreal hot water pools and ice caverns. A half-hour later a weeping Ferguson released Maverick's ashes. This time they had both made the summit.
Paul Ferguson with his late training partner, Maverick. Last month, Ferguson made it to the summit of Mount Rainier, a feat he first attempted more than 15 years ago. There, he distributed Maverick's ashes.
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Nice pic. I suppose a flower must smell well incredible to a Lab with their olfactory system. And it’s nice to know this one has paused in his busy schedule to take it all in.
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