Truckee resident Doug Stoup has a habit of making headlines at the top and bottom of the world.

On Friday, Stoup did it again, reaching the South Pole by completing a never-before-skied 667-mile route that crossed treacherous crevasse fields and featured fierce wind storms ” all while hauling a weighty sled.

Stoup said he and fellow skier Richard Dunwoody were “exhausted and elated” during a satellite phone dispatch posted on the Web site http://www.beyondshackleton.com.

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The duo were holed up in a tent drinking coffee and eating biscuits after the 49-day ordeal that saw both adventurers lose approximately 30 pounds.

Dunwoody, a champion British horse jockey, and Stoup were joined by British real estate developer James Fox, who had to drop out of the expedition before reaching the pole.

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Stoup skied the last several days with a patch over his left eye after developing a painful case of snow blindness.

But the last several days were easier than the strenuous climb from the Filchner ice shelf to the polar plateau. The route recreated what would have been legendary Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton’s trajectory to the South Pole in 1915 and 1916, had his ship not been trapped and crushed in thick sea ice ” setting off an epic race for survival to Elephant Island.

Stoup has traveled, climbed, skied and snowboarded in some of the most remote regions on the planet. He has climbed the peaks of Denali, Kilimanjaro and Vinson Massif, and is the first American male to ski to the South Pole

His more recent journeys have included Anvers Island near Antarctica, Ama Dablam and Cho Oyu in the Himalayas and the famed Ice Bike Expedition ” a solo test of a protoype bike on Antarctic glacial ice.

He has also skied to the North Pole, including in the expedition Pole Track ” an international expedition supporting climate change research.

For more information, visit http://www.beyondshackleton.com or http://www.iceaxe.tv