Lonnie Dupre is shown pulling his 150-pound sled across the wintry ice scape of Mount Denali. Dupre is trying to become the first person to solo climb Denali in the month of January.
After a delay of several days Lonnie Dupre has begun his climb of Mount Denali, North America’s highest peak at 20,320 feet. Dupre arrived by plane at Kahiltna Glacier on Jan 7. The glacier is located at the base of Denali.
Dupre is seeking to become the first person to climb Denali alone in January. Three Russian climbers made it to the summit in January, but no solo climber has ever taken on the mountain in its darkest, windiest, coldest month.
To start out, Dupre will pull a 6-foot, 150-pound sled across the lower reaches of the mountain. He will travel on crosscountry skis and will also carry a 14-foot lightweight aluminum ladder that will help him span crevasses.
Once Dupre has navigated the lower portions of the mountain, he will switch from skis to wearing crampons on his boots and carry a backpack.
Most of Dupre’s meals will be eaten uncooked. He will only cook at suppertime after he has dug out his snow cave to sleep in for the night. To keep his energy up, Dupre will need to consume about 6,000 calories per day. Because of high winds that can reach in excess of 100 miles per hour, Dupre will need to dig snow caves to sleep in. “No tent can survive those winds,” he said before leaving.
Along the way, Dupre will mark his snow caves (called ranger trenches) and crevasses with bamboo wands wrapped in reflective tape. Dupre is carrying about 300 wands that will help guide him safely back down the mountain.
Because January is the darkest, coldest month of the year, Dupre will have about six hours of daylight to navigate in.
Base camp manager Tom Surprenant posted this on his Dupre’s website on Jan 8—“The snow is dry and abrasive which makes pulling the sled difficult because it does not slide well due to friction between the sled’s plastic runners and the snow. He built a ranger trench in 1 hour and 50 minutes.”
The next day, according to Surprenant, Dupre “had a good day of travel despite a sustained glacier downwind of approximately 50 miles per hour during the day. This evening the wind is gusting to plus 70 miles per hour. As he gains elevation there will be less and less snow and harder ice pack. It took 2 hours and 45 minutes to build his ranger trench due to the hard ice pack.”
The lack of snow at higher elevations may stymie Dupre’s quest to reach Denali’s summit. “If he can’t dig snow caves, he can’t keep going,” said Buck Benson, who climbed Denali last June with Dupre and Surprenant. Benson plans to fly to Alaska near the end of the climb and rendezvous with friends.
Due to the educational component of this adventure, Dupre will be in daily contact with his support team located in Talkeetna. From there, daily blog entries, photos, videos and radio posts will be sent out to various media and educational outlets to keep the public informed of his progress.
If all goes well, Dupre will use what he has learned to bring attention to shrinking glaciers and to produce a film and audio documentary for radio. He plans on doing something big at the summit. You can follow Dupre by googling his name. It will take you to his website where daily postings are listed that mark his progress.
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