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Lonnie Dupre
Mount Hunter: Take five.
Climbing Mount Hunter in the winter has been an elusive goal for Lonnie Dupre. He made three solo attempts to become the first mountaineer to reach the summit of Mount Hunter in the winter that ended prematurely; a group effort failed as well.
Situated in Alaska’s Denali National Park, at 14,573 feet, Mount Hunter is the steepest and most technical of the three great peaks located in the park’s mountain range.
He and Pascale Marceau and one other climber also attempted a winter climb of Mount Hunter in 2019. During that climb, the group negotiated gaping crevasses and ice blocks. The team made it through the difficult and dangerous 3300-foot, 50 to 60-degree couloir called the Ramen before having their way blocked by boulders too difficult to navigate.
This time around, Dupre and Pascale will attempt the south peak of Mount Hunter known as Mount Stevens. At 13,965 feet, Mount Stevens is a wedge-shaped peak that has never been summited in the winter.
Pascale Marceau
Lonnie and Pascale were flown to the base of Mount Hunter the first week of March and we’re hoping to finish their climb of Mount Stevens by March 21, the last day of winter.
Starting at the base of the southwest ridge, the two attempted to navigate a 2,500 couloir up to a ridge crest at 9,500 feet. At about two-thirds of the way up the couloir, they encountered three feet of slab snow sitting on sugar snow. Alarmed, Dupre said on his blog post he and Pascale were scared, “The kind of scared where you get your butt back down before the chute avalanches.”
Dupre added he had hoped to climb Mount Hunter before he turned 60 but now, saying he was a little disappointed, “Mount Hunter will be saved for the younger generation to climb.”
Although the quest to climb Mount Hunter was over, at least for this trip, Pascale and Dupre weren’t finished. They were skiing north of Hunter towards a couple of other mountains and may summit one of those. They were also going to check on a remote weather station and get a GPS reading and picture to take back to the National Park Service.
Lonnie said he and Pascale were healthy and in good spirits. The weather was clear, sunny, but up high; the winds were furiously raking the mountains. Pascale estimated they could be blowing as much as 80 miles per hour.
The elusive Mount Hunter
In 2016, after enduring several days of high winds, poor snow conditions, and brutal cold, Dupre abandoned his attempt to become the first person to solo climb Mount Hunter.
During that attempt, Dupre was flown to Kahiltna glacier at the base of Mount Hunter on January 5, but unfortunately, he couldn’t begin his climb. Lonnie set across the glacier at the base of the mountain on skis, encountering large chunks of ice that encumbered his progress. When the terrain got too steep to ski, Dupre switched to making his way on foot with poles. Walking was difficult. The snow was waist-deep, but Dupre couldn’t plow through the snow because it had a thick crust. Making little progress and realizing he would have to camp among the ice falls, Dupre returned to his camp and relocated further north, seeking out a route steeper in pitch.
The next day Dupre sought an alternate way up the mountain but had to turn back. He climbed some steep, technical pitches, according to his blog, but did not have sufficient protection from falling rocks to continue. On his way down, Dupre broke through a bergschrund (a crevasse created where the glacier meets the mountain). With both feet dangling into the void, Dupre arrested the fall at shoulder level, and with great effort and time, he managed to get himself and his backpack out of the crevasse.
About the climbers
Lonnie Dupre made the first solo ascent of Alaska’s Mount Denali (20,340 feet) in January. He climbed Kyajo Ri (20,295 feet) in the Himalayas, Nepal, made a solo ascent of Quincy Adams (13,615 feet) in Alaska, and is the first known person to summit Jeanette Peak (10,135 feet) in British Columbia.
To learn more about Lonnie, there are three books about his polar and mountaineering’ exploits: Alone at the Top: Climbing Denali in the Dead of Winter; Life on Ice: 25 years of Arctic Exploration and the Greenland Expedition: Where Ice is Born.
Pascale Marceau, by trade, is an engineer who devoted much of her working life to pioneering a world-first waste-to-energy process and consulting on risk management.
Pascale’s notable mountaineering accomplishments include making the first winter ascent of Mount Woods (15,912 feet) in the Yukon, Canada, which made her the first female to make a winter ascent of a major peak in the subarctic. She and Lonnie made the first ascent of Jeanette Peak in British Columbia, Canada. And Pascale Marceau is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
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