EXPEDITIONS
Winter carpe
FIRST WINTER ASCENT
Mt. Carpe 12,552’ — Alaska Range
The team will approach Mt. Carpe (12,552 ft) on skis from the north side of the Alaska Range during winter. Located in the shadow of Denali (formerly Mount McKinley), Mt. Carpe can be brutally cold. The range traps cold arctic air on its north faces and blocks warmer coastal fronts from flowing in from the south.
The two person team can expect minus 50 degree temperatures, high winds and only 6 to 8 hours of daylight.
The expedition will be a test of human will, mountaineering skills and 25 years of polar expedition experience.
Dates: March 1-15, 2017
Team Members:
Lonnie Dupre was born in 1961 and is descended on his mother’s side from Jacques Cartier, the French explorer and founder of Quebec. He has 25 years of polar expeditions under his belt. Lonnie also most recently completed the first successful January solo ascent of Denali.
Awards
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Outside magazine’s Most Badass Adventures 2015
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National Geographic Adventure - Best of Adventure 2005
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Rolex Award for Enterprise 2004
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Polartec Challenge Award 2000 & 2001
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Elected Fellow National of the Explorers Club 1996
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Winter Olympics, Oslo, Norway 1994
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Soviet Sportsman’s medal 1989
Accomplishments
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Dupre completed the first west to east, 3,000 mile winter crossing of Canada’s famed Northwest Passage by dog team
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Achieved the first circumnavigation of Greenland, a 6,500 mile, all non-motorized journey by kayak and dog team
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Lonnie has pulled sleds on skis from Canada to the North Pole twice. The 2006 expedition reached over 68 million people worldwide on issues surrounding climate change
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Dupre accomplished the first January solo winter ascent of Alaska’s Denali (20,340 ft)
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Alpine ascent of Kyajo Ri (20,295 ft) in Nepal
Pascale Marceau was born and raised in Sudbury, ON and later called Ottawa home. Her stomping grounds were the Adirondacks, NY and the Green Mountains of Vermont where she discovered backcountry skiing and mountaineering. Pascale is a natural adventurer: the tougher and more remote, the better! Pascale has recently transitioned to a life of engineering consulting and now lives in the Canadian Rockies where she is focusing on climbing and alpinism.
Accomplishments
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Peruvian/Bolivian Andes: Several 5,000m - 6,000m peaks
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Himalayas: Lobuche East (6119m)
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Utah: Several technical canyon descents - no bolt ethic
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Baffin Island: Auyuittuq traverse
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Alaska: Haines Pass and White Pass ski expeditions; mountaineering in the Alaska Range
2017 Cold hunter one
Mount Hunter (14,573 ft) is the steepest and most technical of the three great peaks in Denali National Park. It is also known as the most difficult 14,000 foot peak in North America. The first winter ascent of Mt. Hunter took place in March of 1980 by a three person team. No one has yet to succeed at a solo ascent of this mountain during the winter. That is the focus of this expedition.
Dupre will attempt the first solo winter ascent of Mt. Hunter in early January. With only 5-7 hours of daylight, much of the climb will be carried out in the darkness of sub-arctic winter. High winds and deep snow will be big obstacles, but technical climbing in extreme cold poses the greatest challenge.Dupre will use a methodical alpine climbing strategy, making an ultra-light push from base to summit. A stable window of good weather is paramount to the success of the climb due the limited ability to carry supplies.
Lonnie’s backpack will weigh between 55 to 60 pounds supplying him for 15 to 19 days; a humbling weight for the steep terrain.
Images courtesy of: Ackerman+Gruber
2015 - 2016 VERTICAL NEPAL
Alpine ascent of Kyajo Ri (20,295 ft) in Nepal
The 12 pitches averaged 55 degrees, so double ice axing and front pointing was the norm. The summit comes to a sheer point with just enough room for the team to rest shoulder-to-shoulder. A mountain panorama unfolded as we reached the summit, which dropped off sheer to the north and west. Views of Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse, Cho Oyu, Ama Dablam and mountains in the Langtang region. Many seemed dwarfed from our summit position.
Vertical Nepal team volunteered for The Rose International Fund for Children (TRIFC.org). TRIFC’s mission is to improve the lives of children with disabilities in Nepal.
Vertical Nepal teamed up with Adventurers & Scientists for Conservation (ASC) Worldwide Microplastics - College of the Atlantic - http://www.adventurescience.org/
Challenge: Microplastics, plastic particles <5mm, pose an environmental and human health risk when they enter our waterways. Toxins adhere to these particles and can enter the food chain.
Global Microbe Scat- Harvard Medical School- http://www.adventurescience.org/
Challenge: Antibiotic resistance is a growing human health issue.
2015 DENALI WINTER SOLO SUMMIT
Arctic explorer and climber Lonnie Dupre became the first to summit Denali aka Mount McKinley in January – 12/18/14 Dupre flew to basecamp. With winter winds regularly exceeding 100 miles per hour, temperatures dropping below -60º F, and just six hours of sunlight each day, January is a formidable time on Denali, whose elevation of 20,320 feet makes it North America’s highest mountain. Dupre reached the summit at 2pm (AKST) on January 11, 2015.
Only nine expeditions, totaling 16 people, have ever reached the Denali summit in winter, and six deaths occurred during those climbs. Of these previous winter expeditions, four were solo, but none was in January, the darkest and coldest time of the year on the mountain.
See more at:
ABC's Good Morning America
2010 ARROWHEAD EXPEDITION
Lonnie Dupre, with a team of three others climbed Denali (20,320 feet in Alaska) and summited unguided in 13 days.
Denali, aka Mount McKinley, in Alaska, is North America’s highest mountain at 20,320 feet. Denali’s high latitude (being close to the Arctic) makes it feel like a 23,000 - foot peak. This, along with its unpredictable weather and vast crevasse fields, makes it a challenging climb in summer even by Himalayan standards.
You can read more about the Arrowhead Expedition on Denali and more in Life on Ice: 25 Years of Arctic Exploration by Lonnie Dupre.
2009 PEARY CENTENNIAL NORTH POLE EXPEDITION
To commemorate one of the most famous – and controversial – early polar expeditions, Rolex Laureate Lonnie Dupre and two other explorers have reached the North Pole after a daunting, 54-day trek across the ice. The team endured -56º F temperatures.
Lonnie Dupre a freelance guide for PolarExplorers, a Chicago based adventure company led adventurers Stuart Smith and Max Chaya on a 2-month, 650-mile journey pulling sleds to the North Pole. - Read more at ROLEX
2006 ONE WORLD EXPEDITION
In 2006 Lonnie Dupre and Eric Larsen pulled and paddled modified canoes over 600 miles of shifting sea ice from Canada to the North Pole. This journey was the first to get to the North Pole over sea ice in the summer, and created 68 million worldwide impressions on issues of global warming.
Ward Hunt - North Pole - Cape Moris Jessup, Greenland. The Arctic Ocean is mysterious the body of water and ice that physically connects all regions of the Earth. Traditionally, Arctic Ocean expeditions have been launched during the coldest time of year while the ice is still thick and stable. Over time, many polar expeditions have been planned and completed. Yet freeze-thaw conditions, dangerous shifting ice floes, slush and melt water pools continued to prevent even the most experienced explorers from attempting a summer North Pole Expedition, until now.
Lonnie Dupre and Eric Larsen are traveling from Canada to the geographic North Pole.
The two explorers will pull and paddle specially modified canoes across nearly 1000 miles (1610 Km) of shifting sea ice and Open Ocean. (ExploraPoles)
Jay Leno hosts Dupre & Larsen on One World Expedition:
https://vimeo.com/31088382
1997-2001 greenland expedition - circumnavigation
In 1992, Dupre led a 3,059-mile, 185-day trek across the Canadian Arctic, the first west-to-east crossing of the Northwest Passage via dog sled and ski. In 2001, Dupre and Australian teammate John Hoelscher completed the first circumnavigation of Greenland using dog sleds in winter and kayaks in summer. His expeditions have been featured in Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated, Outside and National Geographic Online.
Dupre was awarded the Soviet Sportsman Medal for Arctic exploration in 1989, was elected Fellow National of the Explorers Club in 1996 and was keynote lecturer to the Fellows of the Royal Geographic Society in London upon completion of the Greenland Expedition.
He is the author of "Greenland Expedition-Where Ice is Born," which details the first 3,000 miles of the 6,500-mile circumnavigation of Greenland through journal entries and breathtaking photos. (ExploraPoles)
1995 BANKS ISLAND EXPEDITION
Lonnie and Kelly Dupre along with four huskies with dog packs, hiked the 250-mile length
of Banks Island, home of 75,000 muskoxen during Canada’s High-Arctic summer.
Author of The Raven's Gift and more, Kelly lives in Grand Marais, Minnesota where she creates, instructs and authors.
1994 WINTER OLYMPICS
Lonnie Dupre, along with an international team, dog-sledded the 1000-mile leg from Lillehammer, Norway, to Murmansk, Russia.
They carried an environmental message from the closing ceremonies of the XVII Winter Olympics at Lillehammer that eventually reached Nagano, Japan, site of the 1998 Winter Olympics.
Read further at:
Chicago Tribune
1991-1992 northwest passage expedition
Lonnie Dupre and Malcolm Vance traveled 3000 miles by dogsled from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Churchill, Manitoba, along the Arctic Ocean and northern Canada.
This was the first west-to-east crossing of Canada’s
famed Northwest Passage in winter.
You can read more about the Northwest Passage
Expedition and others in Life on Ice: 25 Years of Arctic Exploration by Lonnie Dupre.
1989 bering bridge expedition
Lonnie Dupre, along with polar explorer Paul Schurke of Ely, MN, and a team of Russians and Americans, dog sledded and skied 1000 miles along the Siberian and Alaskan coasts to promote peace between the USA and USSR.
"1989, he joined with Paul Schurke and 10 others on joint Soviet-American Arctic expedition to promote peace. They traveled by dogsled through small Siberian villages after crossing the Bering Bridge, meeting the people and being their guests."(CCNH)
Read more about the Bering Bridge Expedition in the ABC's of Arctic Exploration, an article by Brian Larsen here.
1985-1986 brooks range expedition
At the age of 24, Lonnie Dupre had his first taste of Arctic life. He and fellow Minnesotan John Pedersen were dropped off by plane 50 miles south of Bettles, AK.
In this remote region, they built a primitive log cabin and spent the winter living off the land.
You can read more about Dupre's first adventures in exploration others in Life on Ice: 25 Years of Arctic Exploration.