14ers.com

This is not about me for sure. Lonnie Dupre wants to become the only person to have summited Denali solo in January.
Sounds like severe brrr-age to me.

http://www.summitdaily.com/article/2012 ... ofile=1055" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

No joke I actually met this guy on a hut trip this week. Didn't know he was famous.. He did mention that he was heading to Alaska to do some climbing and photography. Hope he does well.

Wow!!! Go Lonnie Go

If you haven't read Minus 148 by Art Davidson you should. It is a great read and should convince most not to climb Denali in Winter. I think Naomi Uemura would agree. He had the first solo winter ascent back in Feb of 1984, then he died on the descent. Vern Tejas successfully completed the task in Mar of 88. The legendary Johnny Waterman, probably the most determined solo climber to ever set foot on the Kahiltna, disappeared during a winter solo attempt of the east face not long after his 145 day solo of Mt Hunter, and he didn't take one of those fancy bush planes, he left from his front door in Talkeetna on foot (about 60 tundra miles away). Climbing it successfully in Jan is so difficult because you only have about 2 hours of daylight, the winds are at their highest, and the snowpack is terrible. Navigating school bus sized crevasses in the dark is usually not that much fun.

It's amazing what risks you have to take to do something new in the mountains these days. 13 hours from 17,000 feet to the summit is a bit on the slow side so I am assuming no skis. We got up and down from 14,000 in 10 hours. If I was rolling solo through a crevasse field it seems like I would want to disperse my weight as much as possible and then be able to exit the mountain quickly if things got really bad. Also not sure why one would want to camp at 17k. That place is a wind tunnel death trap. A good place to hang out and acclimate for a few hours, but I can't imagine trying to camp there in January, when just a few hours lower you have a relatively comfy and protected camp at 14k. But what do I know. I do wish Lonnie great weather and better luck.

Really hoping Lonnie is successful this time around! Our friends and current roommates, Elias de Andres Martos and his wife Bridget, were helping Lonnie with some mountaineering fundamentals and training this past week in Summit and on Vail Mtn as in the picture in the Summit Daily article. They speak very highly of the man and are good friends. Here's to hoping he is safe and successful!

"Tejas, who became a household name in Alaska in 1988 when he became the first climber to complete a solo winter ascent of Mount McKinley, returned to the summit of his beloved McKinley on Monday to break the world speed record for climbing the Seven Summits. He did it with two days to spare."

I'm guessing it wasn't "January".

Pretty interesting guy.

Only 9 expeditions (with a total of 16 climbers) have ever reached the summit of Denali in winter. Six deaths resulted from those climbs. Only one team (3 Russian climbers) has ever made the summit in January…the dead of winter. Of those 9 original expeditions, four were solo, but none of the solos were in January, the darkest and coldest time on the mountain.

^ From Lonnie's website

Tejas' winter summit was pretty interesting...he climbed while strapped to an aluminum ladder to protect himself from crevasse falls. Dupre (according to the article) will use skis for the same purpose, which might not be as effective, but apparently Dupre has tried the ladder technique previously.

The first fatalities recorded on Denali were two skiers in 1932 who were attempting the second ascent; the successful second ascent party the same year found their tracks leading to a hole through the snow into a crevasse.

Jim Davies wrote:Tejas' winter summit was pretty interesting...he climbed while strapped to an aluminum ladder to protect himself from crevasse falls. Dupre (according to the article) will use skis for the same purpose, which might not be as effective, but apparently Dupre has tried the ladder technique previously.

The first fatalities recorded on Denali were two skiers in 1932 who were attempting the second ascent; the successful second ascent party the same year found their tracks leading to a hole through the snow into a crevasse.

Lonnie seems to be ditching his skis at 11,000. I think I would want mine to at least 14K as there are still a lot of giant crevasses all the way to ABC. The ladder technique was cleaver but not practical. Even in winter, speed is safety. The conventional wisdom for the West Butt route is a little flawed in my opinion, especially for folks that are obviously as skilled as Lonnie. I do admire his attempt. 99.9999% of the world can't imagine how much hard work and how cold it's going to be. I am not sure constructing an ice cave at 17k in the dark is possible, or in the light for that matter, but again, fit people shouldn't be staging from 17k. It took me 6 desperate days in a storm up there to figure that one out.

Lonnie is at 14,200 feet,a significant number for us. Stay tuned the opportunity to summit is coming up in the next several days.

http://www.oneworldendeavors.com/2013/01/22/14-2k-camp/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is beyond awesome.

Here is a link to the weather he is looking at over the next few days. Looks like Saturday might provide a cold and windy but clear weather window.

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/ ... casts/6194" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Denali forecasts are about as accurate as a blind man with a slingshot. Using that forecast though, Monday looks way better than Saturday. The wind will kill you up there. Flash frozen seems like a bad way to go out.