Posted on 01/13/2015 8:18:17 AM PST by TurboZamboni
Minnesota adventurer has succeeded in becoming the first solo climber to reach the summit of Alaska's Mount McKinley in the month of January, his support team said Monday, citing a GPS tracking device.
Lonnie Dupre, of Grand Marais, reached the 20,320-foot summit of North America's tallest peak at 2:08 p.m. Alaska time Sunday, said project coordinator Stevie Plummer.
Dupre sent a text message saying "All OK, Doing Well," through a SPOT GPS messenger device that showed it was sent from the same coordinates as McKinley's summit.
Plummer then posted on the expedition website and on Dupre's Facebook page a map generated by the SPOT system, which she said is "extremely accurate," showing he had made it. She also said he sent a similar SPOT message about 3 1/2 hours later showing he had successfully descended to his high camp at 17,200 feet.
"He spent 10 minutes on the summit, took some photos, then he realized exactly how high up he was and decided to head back down. I guess reality struck at that moment," Plummer said while en route to Alaska to meet up with Dupre.
Plummer spoke with Dupre on Monday, shortly after the climber re-established satellite phone contact for the first time in nearly a week.
This was Dupre's fourth attempt at a solo summit in January of Mount McKinley, also known as Mount Denali. The mountain's notoriously treacherous winter weather forced him to turn back in 2013, 2012 and 2011.
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Good for him, but how does someone that’s “Solo” have a support team, exactly?
I believe they just monitor from afar. They don’t help him climb.
What is not mentioned in the article, is that January in Alaska is usually very cold, temperatures around 100 below. It has been the opposite this Jamuary, and all winter mostly.
Alaska has had one low pressure system after another come through. The highs that normally bring extreme cold out of Siberia and the North Pole have been bypassing us. The ice in the Arctic is breaking records this January for, not its thickness, but its thinness.
The average low January temperature for Barrow, Alaska which is probably the northernmost city is -29 F.
You are correct, I meant the temps on Mount McKinley. My bad.
Ordinary January’s up there turn back all climbers. It’s no surprise to us that live here, that this guy has been able to climb the mountain this Jan.
About the book, “Minus 148 Degrees:”
In 1967, eight men attempted North America’s highest summit: Mount McKinley had been climbed before but never in winter.
Plagued by doubts and cold, group tension and a crevasse tragedy, the expedition tackled McKinley in minimal hours of daylight and fierce storms. They were trapped at three different camps above 14,000 feet during a six-day blizzard and faced the ultimate windchill low temperature of 148° F.
“Minus 148,” a gripping survival story, a mountaineering classic for over 40 years.
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