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The man who tried to conquer Mount McKinley in the dead of winter returned to flat ground Friday.
Adventurer Lonnie Dupre arrived in Talkeetna after spending more than three weeks climbing North America's tallest mountain.
Dupre made his third attempt to become the first solo climber to reach McKinley’s summit in January when daylight is in short supply and the mountain is at its coldest.
“I was up at 17 [thousand feet] because we expected a weather window to make a drive to the summit, as it turns out the weather window was suppose to be 24 hours long but the window turned into 6 or 7 hours and at the end of that, the wind started blowing 60 to 70 miles per hour, it was a really good thing I didn't go,” Dupre said.
He nearly reached the peak within three thousand feet when fatigue and the weather convinced him to turn back.
“You really have to be able to read the weather if you can then pair that up with how you are feeling physically and so what happened to me when I got up to 17 [thousand feet], I was pretty darn tired and started developing fluid on my lungs which is a little bit concerning,” Dupre said. “It weakens you quite a bit.”
He decided to end his summit on Jan. 27 and spent the next few days waiting for weather to clear up, so a plane could pick him up.
Dupre says he plans to take a two or three-year break from the mountain and tackle some other adventures, like a trip to Antarctica.
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