Grand Marais Arctic adventurer Lonnie Dupre (in the back) and his friend and trainer Elias De Andres Martos pose for a quick picture on a recent climb up one of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Dupre has been training to acclimate his body to the altitude and cold that Mount Denali will pose when he once again attempts to scale it in January.
On Christmas Day, Lonnie Dupre won’t be opening Christmas presents, instead he will most likely be pulling a 5-foot sled with 165 pounds of supplies behind him as he slowly makes his way up the slopes of Mount Denali, North America’s highest peak at 20,320 feet.
Dupre, 52, is a renowned Arctic adventurer with more than 25 years of experience traversing cold and snow either on skis, snowshoes or by dogsled. He will begin his quest on December 20.
This will be the fourth straight year Dupre will attempt to become the first person to solo-climb Mount Denali (McKinley) in the dead of winter. With little sunlight and winds that can reach 100 miles per hour and cold that can dip below -50 F, Dupre will once again need every break he can get to reach the summit. It was those high winds that stopped him the last three times when he was caught in windstorms that pinned him down for a week at a time.
The mammoth mountain presents an array of challenges, not the least of which are crevasses that can swallow a climber in an instant. Chances of making one’s way out of the deep holes are slim, and many climbers who have met this fate have never been found.
To stave off some of the risk, Dupre will carry 175 bamboo wands and use them to mark his route, his camp, and the dangerous crevasses. They will guide his way down, which, Dupre said, is more dangerous than the climb up.
“After three previous attempts, I’ve learned to significantly reduce my risk because I understand the route more intimately and have fine-tuned my equipment to make myself lighter and more efficient,” Dupre said.
Currently Dupre is doing some mountain climbing in Colorado in an effort to get acclimated to the altitudes and thin air he will find on Denali.
During the early part of his journey, Dupre will ski on 8-foot-long, 4-inchwide cross country skis that he and Mark Hansen made at North House Folk School. The skis were fashioned from yellow birch cut on Dupre’s Hovland property.
Dupre’s quest will begin at 7,200 feet where he will set up a base camp. Along the way he will establish camps at 7,800 feet on Kahitna glacier, then navigate the Kahitna Pass to camp at 11,200 feet. From there he will make his way around Windy Corner to set up camp at 14,200. He will set up his last camp at 17,200 feet, an elevation he has reached twice in his last three attempts.
Last year he felt fluid forming in his lungs, causing him excessive fatigue as he waited for a window in the weather to open. Unfortunately he was pinned inside a snow cave for seven days and when it cleared enough to get out, he headed down, not up the mountain. A safe bet, because after six or seven hours the wind picked back up to 60 to 70 miles per hour, which would have made going forward impossible.
To follow Dupre’s trek online, visit www.oneworldendeavors.com.
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