Minnesota explorer Lonnie Dupre is preparing to try one more time to become the first person to make a solo climb to the top of Alaska's Mount McKinley during the month of January.
Sam Cook of the the Duluth News Tribune reports that Dupre, of Grand Marais, soon will leave for Colorado to train on 14,000 peaks to acclimate to altitude. Then, in mid-December, he'll fly to Alaska for final preparations for his January assault on America's tallest mountain.
His previous attempts to reach the 20,320-foot summit, in 2012 and 2011, were thwarted by severe weather.
"It's a beautiful, beautiful but unforgiving place," Dupre, 51, told Cook, the newspaper's longtime outdoor writer.
Cook reported that only nine expeditions with a total of 16 climbers have ever reached the summit of McKinley, also known as Denali, in winter. Six climbers died on those expeditions. Four of those nine expeditions were solo, but none of the solo expeditions was in January, the coldest and darkest month on the mountain.
The New Tribune's entire report is here.
