Lonnie Dupre of Grand Marais is making his fourth attempt to climb Mount McKinley (Denali) in January, the coldest, darkest month of the year. If he succeeds he will become the first solo climber to ascend North America’s highest peak in January.
Except for a rest last year, Denali and Dupre have an annual thing going.
So far North America’s highest mountain has spurned Grand Marais mountain climber/ polar adventurer Lonnie Dupre from reaching the 20,327-foot summit.
Three times, from 2011 to 2013, the mountain, extreme cold and huge winds trapped Dupreinsmallsnowcaves(4feetx4feet)for up to a week at a time, once when he was only eight hours from the mountain’s top before a break in the wild winter weather allowed him a chance to get back down to safety.
But this year Dupre hopes to end his frigid date with Denali. If he can make the summit this January he will become the first person to solo climb the Alaskan peak in the coldest, darkest month of the year and he will end his dangerous quest once and for all.
With winds that can exceed 100 miles per hour and temperatures that fall to -50 F (or more) and only six hours of sunlight to work with, and with seemingly bottomless crevasses seen and unseen to navigate, tricky ice fields to scale and slide through and scramble over and narrow paths hugging steep gorges as he carries his heavy gear on his back while climbing into rare, lung busting air, Denali is a beast to climb.
To train for this Lonnie runs, hikes with 50-pound packs on his back, pulls tires, lifts weights and will push his body to extremes before heading to Talkeetna, Alaska, his headquarters.
“I like to gain about 10 pounds before I begin my climb,” Dupre said recently while working out at the YMCA. He will need those calories and muscle because the push to the top will be arduous as he pulls a 6-foot sled weighing about 175 pounds and carries a heavy backpack with his provisions and climbing gear. He will also carry a 14-foot lightweight aluminum ladder on his sled, which he will use to help span crevasses. He will also use extra long skis made by Grand Marais craftsman Mark Hanson to help bridge hidden crevasses. At 14,000 feet he will stow the ladder and sled and switch to backpacking supplies up the steeper sections of the mountain.
Lonnie will eat about 4,500 calories a day, with most of it being cold handfuls of food he has prepared before the trip. And despite the high caloric intake, he will lose weight. He will only stop to cook at night. While he moves up the mountain he will include rest days to acclimate his heart and lungs to the higher elevations and get his body used to using less oxygen. He will move gear up the mountain to store it then come back down to sleep to acclimate his body to the higher elevations.
As he travels he will mark his progress with bamboo wands and place them at dangerous crevasse crossings and mark his camps to help ensure a safe return down. He will use tents this year more than snow caves because they are easier and take less time to set up, although he will still have to dig to make sure the tents are halfway buried in snow and thus somewhat protected from the wicked winds.
To date 16 people have reached Denali’s pinnacle in the winter. Six people died during those climbs and only two Russians have reached Denali’s crest in January.
Over the course of his career Lonnie has traveled more than 15,000 miles throughout the high Arctic, either by dogsled, on skis, or on snowshoes. In 2004 he was presented with the Rolex Award for Enterprise to commemorate his efforts to raise awareness about the effects climate change has had on the coldest parts of our planet.
As Lonnie climbs he will keep the public posted through daily blog entries, photographs and audio posts on his website. One can also follow his progress online oneworldendevors.com.
Lonnie left Grand Marais in early December and will arrive in Talkeetna December 10. From December 15 on he will be ready to fly to his base camp at 7,200 feet to begin his climb, which is earlier than normal to try to take advantage of better weather, but when asked if he had looked at any long-range forecasts for Denali he laughed. “No, they’re pretty useless.”
As he travels he will document Alaska’s vanishing glaciers. At age 53, Dupre hopes this will be his last solo date with Denali, but his love of the mountain and great arctic spaces will remain, as always, enduring.
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