For the second year in a row high winds and blowing snow deterred Lonnie Dupre from summitting Mount Denali, North America’s highest mountain peak at 20,320 feet. Dupre spent 19 days on the mountain, reaching 14,200 feet before he was trapped for 6 nights and 7 days in a 4’x4’ snow cave. A brief let-up in the weather allowed him to come back down the mountain and get flown back to his base camp at Talkeetna, Alaska, where he is now safe and sound.
Call it Denali deja-vu, but for the second year in a row bad weather forced Grand Marais mountain climber Lonnie Dupre to abandon his attempt to become the first person to summit Mount McKinley (aka Denali) alone in January.
Like last year Dupre made good—if not great—early progress in his climb. But once again he was stranded in a small (4’x4’) snow cave at 14,200 feet for six nights and seven days while the winds reached 97 mph and temperatures dipped to 45 below zero.
During Dupre’s 2011 try, he climbed to 17,200 feet before he was halted by extreme winds and forced, after spending a week in a snow cave, to come back down.
Still, according to Dupre’s base camp manager Stevie Anna Plummer, despite his weeklong stay in cramped, crowded conditions, “Lonnie remained strong and alert and ready to make the [20,320 foot] summit.”
But later in the day when Plummer told Dupre that more bad weather was on the way, he decided to come back down.
“Due to poor weather, low visibility and extreme winds, I was forced to make the decision to descend after receiving word that there was another week of the daunting weather around the corner. You just can’t climb being blown off your feet!” said Dupre.
On January 8, Dupre headed down; making camp at 11,200 feet after making an extra hike back up to 15,200 feet to collect gear he had stashed to help make a run for the top.
The way back down was harrowing and took three days. Of the 16 people who have summitted Denali in the winter, six have died coming back down the mountain.
When reached by phone on January 10, Dupre was resting at his headquarters in the small town of Talkeetna. He had been picked up the day before by an air taxi at his base camp at 7,200 feet on the Kahiltna Glacier, with his base camp managers Plummer and Dmitri von Klein on board to greet him. After a day’s rest, two hot showers, one cold beer and a good night’s sleep in a real bed, Dupre talked about his physical condition after spending 19 harrowing days on an unforgiving mountain.
“The tips of my toes and fingers are a little sore, but otherwise I am fine,” he said.
Although the trip was incredibly arduous and exhausting, Dupre said he only lost “10 to 15 pounds, not too much weight,” and added, “I felt the climb was very successful. You can’t control the weather, and lately the weather has just been nuts.
“I can climb in 25 to 30 mph winds, but not in winds that gust 80 to 97 mph. Throw in some below zero temperatures and you have a situation there,” he said, adding that most climbers who die are blown off of the mountain by gusting winds.
As he headed around the aptly named Windy Corner at 11,200 feet, winds blowing 60- 70 mph hit Dupre, who at that time was pulling his gear on a 14-foot lightweight ladder he used to help him traverse crevasses on the glacier field below.
“The ladder was catching too much wind and I was in danger of getting blown off the mountain when I decided to cut it [the ladder] free. I watched the ladder fall down the cliff into a crevasse and then loaded my gear into my backpack and continued slowly down.”
But Dupre’s problems were far from over. Now carrying 65 pounds on his back and still fighting heavy gusting winds as he headed down Windy Corner’s icy slope, Dupre slipped at a place climbers call “squirrel hill,” and, after sliding about 10 feet, only two special ice axes stopped his decent down the 35 degree hill.
“If I had fallen another 10 feet I would have been moving too fast for the axes to work. I would have fallen several thousand feet. I stayed there for a moment and gathered myself, calmed down a bit. When I got back up I did what is called ‘down climbing.’”
For the next 2½ hours, Dupre used his ice crampons and his axes to descend the hill backwards, staying low to avoid strong winds.
“Normally I could walk that same distance in 20 minutes, but if I had tried to walk in that weather, I would have been blown off of the mountain,” he said.
As Dupre descended the mountain the unrelenting winds and blowing snow caused him trouble finding the bamboo wands that he had used to mark his route and dangerous crevasses. He finally arrived at his 7,800-foot camp late Saturday and rested, gathering his strength for a last push to his base camp at 7,200 feet.
He left on Sunday, fighting through a blizzard as he skied the five miles to his base camp where he could be picked up by air taxis once the weather cleared. But because of the extreme weather, Dupre was forced again to dig a snow cave, this time, however, he could only dig about 18 inches down because of the ice he encountered. He lay in this shallow cave for hours while the weather howled. When it broke at 2:30 a.m. on Monday he traveled the two hours to his base camp and called for a plane ride to Talkeetna.
Although he didn’t reach the summit, Dupre still got some important work done. As he climbed, he gathered microbe samples for the Biosphere 2 project run by Adventures and Scientists for Conservation. It is hoped this data will give scientists a better understanding of how climate change will affect the production of living matter in extreme weather environments.
One of the highlights of Dupre’s trip was spending some time with fellow climber Masatoshi Kuruaki of Japan who was preparing to make his sixth attempt at becoming the first person to climb the 14,573 Mount Hunter alone in the winter. Two winters ago Kuruaki spent 83 days on the mountain, 53 of them stuck in snow caves, before coming down. This time he has brought 100 days of supplies with him.
Dupre said he would take a week to rest and cross country ski in Talkeetna, then head to Colorado where he trained at altitude for this climb and spend a week relaxing there before heading back to Grand Marais.
“I should see everyone in about two and a half weeks. Tell everyone hi and let them know I will have a presentation about my climb in the near future.”
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