Climbing the Peaks to Battle the Lows
Man Is on Mission to Scale the World's Seven Summits, Bring Attention to Depression
Sunday, November 26, 2006; Page A12
INDIANAPOLIS -- Step by step: That's how people defeat depression. It's also how Joe Lawson climbs mountains.
For Lawson, 36, the two are intertwined.
  Joe Lawson of Indianapolis, whose father committed suicide when Joe was 16, is photographed during his attempt to scale Mount McKinley in Alaska. (Expedition Hope Via Associated Press) |
His father, Virgil A. Lawson, committed suicide in 1986 when Joe was 16. The next year, the younger Lawson climbed his first mountain during a school trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas, igniting a lifelong passion.
Now the Indianapolis man is funneling that passion into Expedition Hope, his quest to scale the seven summits -- the tallest mountain on each continent -- to focus awareness on depression.
"I thought, 'If I'm going to do this . . . why not do this for a good cause?' " Lawson said in a phone interview last week from Punta Arenas, Chile, en route to his next challenge, in Antarctica.
His first attempt -- on Alaska's Mount McKinley in May 2005 -- failed when he fell into a hidden crevasse and injured his knee. But Lawson resumed his quest and has since climbed two of the peaks -- Mount Kosciuszko in Australia and Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.
On Friday, he arrived at Patriot Hills, Antarctica, where he will attempt to scale Vinson Massif.
"It's so beautiful here," Lawson said Friday morning on a Web site chronicling his journey ( http:/
When he reaches the 16,067-foot summit, he will take out a photo of an 8-year-old Joe with his father and bury it in the snow, as he did on the other two peaks. Then he will say a few words in memory of his dad.
Lawson's parents had divorced and his father had moved to California by the time Lawson was in high school. But Virgil Lawson still phoned Joe and his siblings once or twice a week. One week, his father's phone calls turned bleak. He told his children he had lost all hope and intended to commit suicide. He was calling to say goodbye.
"He called and said, 'I love you, and I'm going to kill myself,' " Lawson recalled.
The teenage Joe didn't know how to respond.
"I told him I had homework to do, talk to Mom, and I hung up on him," he said. "That was our last conversation."
Lawson said he didn't understand at the time that depression is an illness that could be treated. Many still don't understand, or, like Lawson's father, they feel too isolated and ashamed to ask for help, he said.
As Lawson grew older, so did his passion for adventure.
He became active in adventure racing, including Eco-Challenge races in Argentina and Morocco. In 2003, he founded a company devoted to producing adventure races.
But the mountains kept calling.
He began thinking about scaling the seven summits -- perhaps the most arduous feat in mountain climbing. A couple of years ago, he decided to use the quest to help people who, like his father, feel trapped by depression.
Lawson has the support of his wife, Raena Latina, whom he married on Oct. 7.
"As soon as I met him a couple of years ago, I knew what his passion was," she said. "How can you deny somebody his passion?"
Lawson sees a powerful parallel between depression and mountain climbing. Both are long, hard struggles that must be conquered one step at a time, he says. "The summit is always reachable, no matter how hard or how difficult."
