Adventurer, 99, Sets Sights on Conquering Namesake Peak

He is a world-class adventurer who spends days on end in bed at his Anchorage apartment, relying on a caretaker to help him with mundane activities like walking.

But Norman Vaughan is determined to celebrate his 100th birthday by scaling the 10,300-foot mountain in Antarctica that bears his name. And listening to his surprisingly robust voice, it’s easy to believe that he just might do it, despite his congestive heart disease. At least his spirit is willing.

“I’m working on getting physically fit, to get rid of that thing,” he said, kicking a steel walker at the foot of his hospital-style bed.

If not, professional climbers taking part in the planned December expedition will pull Vaughan in a specially rigged sled dubbed the “Norm-Hauler.” However he gets to the summit of Mt. Vaughan, he plans to break out the champagne. It would be his first drink.

“The only liquor I’ve ever had was the taste of wine at communion,” he said. “I told my mother I wouldn’t drink until I was 100 and she said, ‘That’s all right.’ ”

The mountain was named by Adm. Richard Byrd after Vaughan joined his 1928 South Pole expedition as part of a crew driving dog teams. They crossed 1,500 miles of frozen terrain to collect geological samples and other research specimens.

Vaughan was born Dec. 19, 1905. He first climbed to the summit of the mountain with his wife and others three days before his 89th birthday, slowed only by an artificial knee.

Since the 1994 climb, Vaughan has had triple bypass surgery. He uses a wheelchair to go long distances. But he’s begun an exercise regimen to condition himself for the upcoming climb, spending hours at a therapeutic pool, walking whenever and wherever he can, he said.

At least 16 people, including medics and climbers, have signed on, said his wife, Carolyn Muegge-Vaughan, 62, who is organizing the trip. She also is heading an effort to raise the estimated $2 million cost of the excursion. So far, organizers have collected about $33,000 through a 99th birthday fundraiser, said Muegge-Vaughan, who also is seeking corporate sponsors, including a champagne company.

Veteran mountaineer Brian Horner is among the climbers planning to haul Vaughan up the mountain. Horner, who runs a survival skills school in Anchorage, doesn’t believe that Vaughan will be able to tackle the climb on his own because of his frail condition.

“I don’t think we have enough time, seeing how long it takes him to make it up my stairs,” said Horner, who participated in a failed expedition in 1993. “His brain is there completely, but his body is letting him down, which is a shame.”

Horner and other expedition members practiced on a local mountain recently, towing Vaughan on the custom sled equipped with a pulley system.

Try expressing any doubts about his stamina, though, and Vaughan quotes his oft-repeated motto: “Dream big and dare to fail.” He credits that attitude with enabling him to complete the first climb on Mt. Vaughan a year after an initial excursion failed.

The 1993 attempt was to have included sled dogs -- the last mushing expedition before an international ban on dogs went into effect. But the expedition was cut short when one of the team’s two planes crashed, killing some of the dogs and injuring those on board.

“[The 1994 climb] was the climax of our dream,” he said. “We had to risk failure to get there. We dared to fail.”

This is, after all, a man with an enduring thirst for adventure.

Vaughan, the last surviving member of the Byrd expedition, taught himself to mush dogs at an early age. He quit Harvard to run a dog team for a medical missionary in Newfoundland and also qualified for an exhibition of the sport at the 1932 Winter Olympics.

Vaughan’s dog ties include a stint as a search-and-rescue officer with the Army Air Corps during World War II, when he had 425 dogs under his command.

He moved to Alaska at 67, nearly broke and without a job. He picked up funds shoveling snow, washing dishes and working as a janitor. He eventually assembled a dog team and began entering the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, completing the 1,100-mile race to Nome on his third try -- at 72. He ran the race 10 more times.

At 92, he organized and participated in the first Nenana-to-Nome run that, like the Iditarod, commemorates the delivery of diphtheria serum to Nome in 1925, a 775-mile excursion that has become a yearly event.