Photos courtesy of Cook County RidgeRiders The weather was cold, but there was a great turnout for the Cook County RidgeRiders Fun Run anyway! There were 167 people registered for the ride, 30 more than last year. The club raised about $5,000 for trail maintenance and a RidgeRiders college scholarship for a local student. Above: Riders came to the event from all over Cook County and the North Shore. This group came from Two Harbors to enjoy the ride. Right: At the end of the day of riding the cards picked up along the way were turned in to see who had received the best cards. Winning the “low hand” and $200 was Brenda Bramstedt Bruggeman. The winner of the “high hand” and $500 was Jay Langer.
Now that he is safe and warm, Grand Marais adventurer Lonnie Dupre has had time to reflect on his third attempt to become the first person to climb Alaska’s Mount Denali (McKinley) solo in the dead of winter.
Dupre came down from his camp at 17,200 feet after 19 days of climbing and the weather deteriorating around him. Once he was at his base camp he had to wait six days for the weather to clear to get flown back to Talkeetna, his headquarters for this trip. All in all Dupre spent 25 days on the mountain.
Two years ago Dupre spent 22 days on Denali. He was trapped in a snow cave at 17,200 feet while hurricane winds and extreme cold kept him from the mountaintop.
Last year he climbed to 14,200 feet and again was stuck in a snow cave for seven days while blizzard conditions penned him in. This year there was a short window—6 to 7 hours—of decent weather, which would have given him a chance to scramble for the 20,320-foot summit, “But I was exhausted and it takes 8-12 hours to make the summit and return to my 17,200 camp. The winds were expected to pick up after 6-7 hours and they did. They hit 60 to 70 miles per hour so I made the right decision to go down. I wouldn’t have survived making the summit and the return,” Dupre said.
Early on Dupre suffered from hypothermia and later he got frostbite in two fingers. He also started to get fluid in his lungs at 17,200 feet, coupled with exhaustion, and was running low on food and fuel when he decided he’d had enough and went back down the mountain.
Dupre said he would give Denali a two to three year break before making another attempt to climb it in January. In the meantime he will work on a documentary called Cold Love that will address the importance of the coldest regions on earth and how they play an important part in keeping the earth cool. He will also promote his book Life on Ice: 25 Years of Polar Exploration and appear for speaking engagements and give presentations about his Arctic travels.
Early in his climb Dupre experienced deep snow and warm temperatures. “That’s just unheard of here on Denali. You can’t rely on the weather one day to the next. It’s all part of climate change,” he said.
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