On December 29, Lonnie Dupre spent the day digging his tent deeper into the snow because the winds on Mount Denali reached 60 mph. Dupre is trying to become the first person to solo climb North America’s highest peak (20,320 feet) in January. Dupre has been on Denali since December 19, moving his gear slowly up each day, then resting and getting his body acclimated to the high altitude.
Garrison Keillor isn’t climbing Mount Denali with Lonnie Dupre, but Dupre is channeling Minnesota’s famed humorist’s radio show A Prairie Home Companion, picking up Keillor’s wit and wisdom while he camps at 11,200 feet from his high tech cold weather radio.
Exhausted from pulling a sled weighed down with more than 150 pounds of gear through waist-deep snow and battling winds that gust up to 50 miles per hour, Dupre decided to take a break from his one-man quest to scale Mount Denali in the dead of winter, resting Monday, December 29 at his camp situated 11,200 feet on North America’s highest mountain. Before he crawled into his Montbell sleeping bag he ate a hearty meal of mac and cheese and went to bed with the goal of waking up to Keillor’s soothing voice.
While it might not be everybody’s cup of tea, cold weather adventuring is what Lonnie Dupre loves to do, with more than 25 years of high arctic exploration behind him.
Dupre spent Christmas at 9,500 feet, treating himself to his last cup of instant coffee before hauling his gear up to his current location. The day before Dupre said he fought through “very, very, deep snow,” and that night he feasted on seafood ramen noodles with bacon bits, had some chocolate and drank some Tang, the drink of America’s first astronauts.
This is Dupre’s fourth attempt in the last five years to reach Denali’s 20,320-foot crest. On two of his attempts he was within 8 hours of reaching the top, but each time he was trapped by extreme cold and winds that reached in excess of 100 mph for a week at a time, huddled in small caves he had dug into the snow. When the weather broke each time he was forced to head back down the mountain before the weather worsened and trapped him once more.
As he said then, “Better to live to try again on another day.”
Leaving earlier this season than in his past attempts, Dupre flew from the small town of Talkeetna to his base camp at 7,200 feet on December 18. He spent two days moving his gear to his camp at 7,800 feet on Kahiltna Glacier, encountering and scampering around some large crevasses along the way. He marks crevasses and his campsites with reflective taped bamboo wands he carries up the mountain. These will help guide him down Denali, which is more dangerous than climbing up the mountain, he said.
His journey now has taken him through the Kahiltna Pass to his current 11,200-foot camp. From there he will carefully make his way around Windy Corner to set up camp at 14,200 feet. Again Dupre will yo-yo up and down the mountain, resting and acclimating his body to the altitude before making his last camp at 17,200 feet and then hopefully catching a nice day to climb to the summit.
A new time- and- energy-saving innovation this year is a Hillenberg tent instead of snow caves. Dupre still has to dig the tent in, but it doesn’t take nearly as much time or effort as it did to dig for hours to make a snow cave. He said he has learned other time saving steps from his previous attempts, and while he is now 53, he believes hardearned experience and wisdom will sustain him more than a younger man’s endurance and energy.
Dupre is hoping the fourth time will be the charm as he attempts to become the first person to solo climb Denali in January, the coldest, darkest month of the year. With winds that exceed 100 mph, temperatures that fall below -60 F, and six hours of daylight, Denali is a formidable mountain for any world class mountaineer to scale. Only 16 people have reached the summit in any winter month, and six people have died attempting the feat.
As someone who is committed to fighting global warming, Dupre is donating profits from the sale of his beautifully written book. Life on Ice: 25 Years of Arctic Exploration between December 15 to February 15, 2015 to the Nature Conservancy’s “Plant a Billion trees” campaign.
His film, Cold Love will be entered into film festivals worldwide and offered on DVD and for digital download in 2015.
“My hope is that Cold Love will help people understand how the pole’s snow and ice essentially acts as a thermostat, reflecting the sun’s energy back into space, and keeping our planet cool,” he said.
To learn more about Dupre’s current climb and his book and film, go to http:// www.oneworldendevors.com or to his Facebook page: facebook.com/oneworldendvors.
Leave a Reply