Minnesota man attempts a climbing first on remote Canadian peak
A Minnesota-based mountaineer and his climbing partner will attempt to summit a remote 17,000-foot mountain in northwest Canada.
If they succeed, Lonnie Dupre of Grand Marais, Minn., and Canadian Pascale Marceau would be the first people to reach Mount Lucania's peak during winter. A successful climb would put Marceau among the first women — if not the very first — to reach a subarctic, high-altitude peak in winter.
Dupre and Marceau will face temperatures as low as -50 degrees, storms that last days, "gale force winds" and little daylight, according to a post on Dupre's blog.
"We aim to experience this area at a time of year when no one else has," reads Dupre's post. "Through captivating imagery and story-telling, our goal is to inspire others to follow their own dreams of adventure and to gain an appreciation for Canada's wild places."
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Lucania, Canada's third-highest peak, lies in the Yukon Territory some 40 miles north of Mount Logan, which is the country's tallest mountain.
Weather permitting, the pair plans to fly into the St. Elias mountain range next week with enough gear to keep them alive for 25 days.
Among Dupre's past climbs are the first successful solo summit of Mt. McKinley (now Denali) in 2015, the first west-to-east winter crossing of the Northwest Passage using dog sleds in 1992 and the first non-motorized circumnavigation of Greenland.
He's also know for his climate change activism.