Duluth climbing guide Audrie Pelosi dies in Devil's Lake accident

Audrie Pelosi, a Duluth-born climbing guide who built her career in Baraboo, died May 30 at Devil’s Lake State Park, a loss that has shaken the Midwest climbing community and put a sharper public-safety focus on one of the region’s most heavily used climbing areas.

Pelosi was 30. Her obituary lists her birth date as Feb. 19, 1996, in the Duluth, Minnesota area, and local reports said she had moved to Baraboo, Wisconsin, where she worked as a climbing guide and became a familiar presence in the local climbing, cycling and snowboarding scene. One report said she was teaching a gear safety course when she died, though authorities have not publicly released details of the accident.

Devil’s Lake has long been a destination for climbers from St. Louis County and beyond, and Pelosi understood its draw. In a Friends of Devil’s Lake State Park post, she described the park as “arguably the best in the Midwest,” a sentiment that now carries added weight for the many people who learned, trained and climbed there with her. The park’s prominence in the regional outdoor economy made her death resonate far beyond Baraboo, reaching Duluth and other Upper Midwest climbing circles where she was known and respected.

Friends of Devil’s Lake State Park said in a Facebook statement that it was “shocked and saddened” by her death and extended condolences to her family, friends, colleagues, neighbors and the climbing community. That response reflected the role Pelosi played not only as a guide, but as part of the broader network of instructors and outdoor workers whose experience shapes how people move safely in the state’s climbing country.

The grief has also been visible at Wildside Action Sports, where flowers and cards were left for Pelosi, according to local reports. A GoFundMe created by Anastasia Exterovich to help her family and cover funeral and memorial expenses had raised more than $21,000 from over 200 donors, far above its initial $5,000 goal.

A celebration of life is scheduled for June 6 at Redlin-Ertz Funeral Home in Baraboo. For Duluth and Baraboo alike, Pelosi’s death is being felt not just as a personal loss, but as a reminder of the risks carried by the guides and instructors who make the region’s outdoor culture possible.