Journal
Lonnie Dupre departing from Denali basecamp. Dmitri von Klein
It kind of feels like winter today in Colorado, for a change. It snowed in Boulder and in many of the mountains and it was only about 20 degrees this morning. Some news from the coldest wild places of the world:
Last week a plane crashed into a mountain in Antarctica (South Pole). It was a Twin Otter, a tough work-horse airplane. Though rarely seen around here, they are in service all over the world. I’ve flown in these many times, including the scary flight from Kathmandu to the mountain village of Lukla in Nepal. On that half-hour flight the pilot gets one chance to land the plane, there is no go-around. If he messes up you crash into the mountain. This has happened several times over the years and the wreckage is visible as you fly in. But because the Twin Otter is so tough, there are usually many survivors who walk away unscathed.
So it would not have been surprising to find survivors from this accident in Antarctica. It can be very difficult to find a downed aircraft in the mountains, even when the emergency locator beacon (ELT) is working. An ELT is a transmitter that activates when a plane crashes, and assuming the transmitter survives, and broadcasts a homing signal that remains active for a few days until the battery is drained. Searchers can use this signal to find a downed aircraft in the wilderness. However, if a plane goes down in the mountains, the rock faces can block and bounce the signal making it very difficult to home in on, like searching for a candle in a hall of mirrors. I write extensively about my experiences searching for, and finding, downed aircraft in Playing for Real.
The wreckage in Antarctica was found using its ELT signal and it was determined that all aboard perished, a followup story is here.
On the other side of the planet, a climber recently attempted to summit Denali in Alaska, solo and in winter. Lonnie Dupre (pictured above from his blog) had to turn back at the high camp at 17,200 feet. He reported -35 degrees Fahrenheit at his high camp on the morning he was going to attempt to summit. Though only a few hours from what would have been an historical mountaineering feat, he decided to descend and give up his attempt. A wise decision. Whereas many might think climbing a Colorado mountain is dangerous (and sometimes it is), this is truly dangerous mountaineering.
There are so many things that can go wrong and swiftly kill you. Among the hazards are extreme cold, extreme altitude, glacier travel (falling into a hidden crevasse) and hazardous technical climbing. Throw in the remoteness and the fact that he is solo on an expedition that takes many weeks, and you’ve got to wonder if he has a death wish. Even without a summit he has beaten long odds if he makes it out alive. The first person to attempt a solo winter climb of Denali was Naomi Uemura, who disappeared on the mountain during his descent after getting to the summit. He was never found.
Dupre appears to be highly experienced as an arctic explorer and attempted this before a couple years ago. He is on his descent now, good luck to him.
Posted in Journal by Mark with comments disabled.