Bear Island resident Richard Laronde may have a home in Massachusetts, but don't call him a flatlander.

Laronde, 56, recently got back from a trek that found him huddled in a tent for five days in what was termed by experts as the blizzard of the century on the side of Mount Vinson —the tallest mountain in the frozen wasteland of Antarctica.

In late December, Laronde feared for his life while climbing the 16,050-foot peak, which is about 750 miles from the South Pole.

"The wind must have been over 100 miles an hour and we had real mountaineering tents, but they were coming apart. When it started to get windy I was thinking 'this is quite the experience,'" explained Laronde from the comfort of his Needham, Mass.-based office of Capron, an event planning outfit.

While he enjoys his summers laying in his hammock "watching the boats pass" at his summer cabin in Meredith, he is a true adventurer whose travels have taken him to both poles. In the future he hopes to go into space.

Laronde, a regular contributor to the popular website www.winnipesaukee.com, has garnered quite a following from his blog on his own site www.icetent.com, where he posts pictures and descriptions of his travels.

Courtesy photo Richard Laronde, pictured here at the South Pole, spends his summers on Bear Island in Meredith where he takes a break from his many adventures in some of the coldest parts of the world. Click here to view Foster's prints for sale

He has been interested in Arctic exploration since he was a child but never considered actually making the journey to the top or bottom of the world until he found out he had diabetes approximately four years ago.

Laronde was told he would need to lose about 100 pounds and thought "what better way to do it than cross-country skiing for miles in the frozen desert of the arctic?" where he made his first journey.

"I never used to do anything like this. I went to the North Pole in April of 2006 and cross-country skied 30 miles to get there and then last January I went to Antarctica and skied 70 miles to the South Pole," explained Laronde.

Laronde said his wife and 9-year-old son have shown nothing but support for his endeavors and he noted that some of his best training for the expeditions took place right here in the Lakes Region.

He noted that the only way to get to his Bear Island cabin in the winter is to ski there over a frozen Lake Winnipesaukee, which became a place for him to get used to what it would feel like to endure both the cold and the physically-demanding skiing.

"I would go around the island on the ice (skiing) pulling a sled with bags of sand in it to duplicate what it would be like," explained Laronde.

(Courtesy Photo) Richard Laronde looks a little frozen as he stands on the summit of Antarctica's Mount Knutzen. The Bear Island summer resident spent a considerable amount of hours skiing on Lake Winnipesaukee to ready himself for such treks, which have taken him to the North and South poles. Click here to view Foster's prints for sale

He said he found that skiing on Winnipesaukee's glare ice was more difficult in some instances than his trek to the North Pole, which he noted has a good snow cover that provides a better "footing" for skiing.

Bear Island is a refuge for Laronde, who takes the summers off and enjoys the novelty of living someplace that requires him to travel by boat to do everything from grocery shop to go see a movie.

He has been summering in the Lakes Region for most of his life and says that island living is his family's way to relax.

"We go up there as soon as my son gets out of school and spend the whole summer there," said Laronde.

He said heading to the South Pole was an amazing adventure that was far more difficult than his trip to the North Pole.

Antarctica is among the dryest places on earth despite its thick ice cover and that the temperatures there got as cold as minus 38 degrees Fahrenheit at times.

He noted that the buildup of ice has the elevation in Antarctica hovering around 10,000 feet, making it difficult to breathe with the freezing cold only further hampering his progress on the treks.

"It's really like being on another planet," said Laronde.

Among the more interesting means of keeping sane in the Antarctic is a pastime known as "spit kicking" that involves a person spitting up in the air.

"By the time it nears the ground (the air is so cold it freezes) and you can kick it," said Laronde with a laugh.

Laronde went back to the Antarctic this past December when he signed up with Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions — a guide service — to attempt to scale Mount Vinson. He said such trips can run a person between $20,000-$35,000 depending on what you are seeking to accomplish.

The adventure saw him fly down to Chile, where he joined the expedition and hopped on a huge Russian cargo plane to fly to Patriot Hills — the only private base in Antarctica.

Laronde began by heading up to base camp and spending a day climbing Mt. Knutzen - a smaller peak near Vinson that is often used to get climbers acclimated to the elevation and the cold.

The thrill-seeker experienced few problems on that trip but had the scare of his life when he began climbing Vinson with his guide and got stuck at "high camp" during one of the worst storms in recent memory in Antarctica, which he noted gets remarkably little snow each year.

"We got up there and it just kept getting windier and windier," said Laronde.

The storm prevented Laronde and his guide from reaching the nearby summit of Vinson for days and required them to huddle in their tents, where he used a laptop to explain his situation on his blog.

"After five days we had run out of food," said Laronde.

On the fifth day (Dec. 13) he posted a message on www.icetent.com that read as follows:

"Last night's weather report said conditions will get worse until at least Monday. There will be no summit attempt. Chris and I will descend to low camp as soon as conditions allow. However we have been in 50-knot winds for the last 12 hours and can't move. We can't light the stove in this wind but have water and trail snacks in our sleeping bags. I am writing and sending this message from inside my sleeping bag, an interesting process. Not getting the summit is disappointing, but frankly, and to keep things in perspective, I will be more disappointed if the Pats don't go 19 and 0."

Eventually the storm did break and Laronde was able to head down the mountain.

And while he hasn't ruled out even bigger mountain treks to Mount Everest or Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, he said his next big adventure should be taking him off-planet via Virgin Galactic — a Richard Branson Virgin Group endeavor that is seeking to take non-professional astronauts out of the Earth's orbit.

"I am getting ready to go into space. I have ticket No. 40 to become an astronaut, but that is at least a year and a half away (or more)," said Laronde.

Laronde is getting ready to go to Philadelphia next week to begin his astronaut training in a centrifuge.

And by the way ... he has lost about 120 pounds.