Grand Marais adventurer has death-defying escape from Alaskan mountain
He's made history with his climbing exploits, but Lonnie Dupre's adventures almost came to an end with a fall that left him terrified.
The Grand Marais climber, who in 2015 completed the first solo winter ascent of North America's tallest mountain Denali, ran into trouble on his descent, following an unsuccessful attempt to scale the 14,573-foot Mount Hunter in Alaska.
According to his blog, he had he broke through a crevasse and was left with both feet "dangling in the void" as he clung to an ice ax for several minutes, before managing to pull himself and his backpack out of trouble.
Responding to a comment on his Facebook page, Dupre joked: "Had to clean my pants after this adventure."
He was similarly blunt in his assessment to the Forum News Service, admitting his lucky escape "scared the s**t out of me."
Dupre's attempt to climb the mountain, which would have made him the first person to do it solo in January, was foiled by difficult conditions, with a wind storm keeping him confined to his base camp for more than a day after arriving.
He recognized the difficulty of his solo climb before setting out, writing: "To say that I'm not outright scared would be untrue." He added that "I'm going to miss my life if I lose it" but said that "getting complacent at 55 is not a life for me."
Although he's planning a couple of other climbing projects for the year ahead, he admitted that he's "not quite done" with Mount Hunter.
The 55-year-old was born and raised in Minnesota and lives in Grand Marais, where he spends his spare time "enjoying woodworking and back country skiing in the Quetico/Boundary Waters," his website says.
His accomplishments include completing the first west-to-east winter crossing of Canada's Northwest Passage by dog team, and circumnavigating Greenland using kayak and dog team.
