Late on Monday night, in the bright sunlit tundra of the South Pole, another record is broken as 21-year-old Norwegian Karen Kyllesø stepped past the line of national flags and stood next to the red and white striped pole representing the southernmost point on Planet Earth.
After just under 54 days of trekking 702 miles through no man’s land, Kyllesø became the youngest person ever to reach the South Pole on Skis, solo and without assistance.
Not too shabby.
That’s the one that Scott and four of his men died trying to reach first. Amundsen and his team got there ahead of him and without casualties – on skis. Scott and his team didn’t use skis. Big mistake.
Born on May 9, 2003, Kyllesø has made it a goal of hers to reach the South Pole ever since she became the youngest girl to cross Greenland on skis in 2018, being 15 at the time.
Her mentor, Lars Ebbesen told AFP, “She had barely even arrived (in Greenland) before she asked me: ‘Do you think I can also go to the South Pole?’”
This feat is guaranteed to go down in history, as Kyllesø surpassed the previous record of youngest person to ski to the South Pole, solo and unassissted by a 5 year age gap. At 26, Pierre Hedan of France first broke the record in 2024, according to Guinness World Records.
High five, Karen Kyllesø!
Comments
27 responses to “54 days of trekking”
Well done to her!
It’s an admirable feat; but I think that you should have noted that neither Scott nor Amundsen had a reception committee waiting for them at the south pole. Scott, in fact, died not on the way, but on the way back (and almost made it).
I was feeling pretty good about myself after skiing 10k in northern Michigan last weekend with temperatures in the teens Fahrenheit. Then you went and posted this. Thanks a lot.
How do you say “You go girl!” in Norwegian?
@Bruce Coppola #3
Google translate gives
Gå, jente
Rick @ 2 – Well I think it’s kind of self-evident that neither Scott nor Amundsen had a reception committee waiting for them at the south pole.
Amundsen also did a lot of research in the Arctic region to discover the most useful means of transport. Therefore, Amundsen’s team used dogs. Scott used ponies. Big mistake.
Amundsen had a lot of experience with dogs in Pole-like places, while Scott had none. Scott didn’t bother to learn how to handle dogs before going South. Result: he made a mess of it.
“bright sunlit tundra of the South Pole”
Odd error that.
Ice sheet =/= tundra
You can’t count on google translate to work on an idiomatic expression like “You go girl!”. The above may be literally correct, but it just sounds weird/funny to Norwegian ears. We have many ways to say something vaguely similar, but no exact equivalent, I think.
On dogs: Today, many would find it disturbing to know that Amundsen and his team killed most, perhaps all, the dogs along the way, using them as food for the remaining dogs as well as for themselves. They thought of them as not only a means of propulsion, but also meals on legs. Efficient, but ruthless.
“You go girl” is a very specific idiom in English too. I don’t use it myself: it would feel fraudulent at best.
Amundsen and co did use their dogs as food but they treated them well in life. Scott took ponies, which were utterly unsuitable for the Antarctic and were miserable from beginning to end.
This stuff is all contested – there are passionate pro-Scott people and pro-Amundsen people. What I know of it comes from Roland Huntford’s book, which is anathema to the pro-Scott people.
Amundsen and his team all survived in good health; Scott not so much.
Three of the dogs survived and returned to Norway: Obersten, Lucie, and Storm.
Ah, good to know. You are better informed than I am! It’s probably been decades since I read about Amundsen’s expedition.
Taking ponies to Antarctica is probably among the worst things you can do to them. The breed of dogs Amundsen brought, are really well adapted for harsh winter conditions.
(On a side note, my next door neigbour has a chihuahua. The poor thing seems really miserable when they take her outside this time of year.)
Growing up in Christchurch, Scott was very much part of my childhood. Lyttelton Port (is Christchurch’s harbour and was Scott’s stepping off point on the way to Antarctica. There’s a statue of Scott in town, not far from the museum, which when I was growing up had quite a decent display on Antarctica. There was also a large bronze bust of Amundsen (impressive beak on him that was very polished from kids rubbing it). Amundsen got the second prize – Oh yeah, this guy got there first, survived, and did things sensibly.
Scott’s expedition is part of that curious British phenomenon of heroic disasters. He fucked it up the way you’re supposed to – with derring do and dignity. Funnily, growing up I barely recall hearing about Shackleton. yet even though unsuccessful in his objectives, was clearly a much better leader and explorer than Scott. A few years back there was a brilliant exhibition at the Museum about Shackleton. I’m in absolute awe of what he achieved. I guess he never received the adulation that Scott did because he had the bad taste to survive.
Random FYI – not a subject I personally have a lot of interest in, but this is a great museum if you ever get the chance to visit.
https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/museums/polar-museum
Thanks Guest, that’s interesting. Here’s a link to an online exhibition by Canterbury Museum and the Antarctic Heritage Trust on a much less well known expedition. -the first permanent camp and over-wintering expedition led by Carsten Borchgrevink. A mix of British, Australian and Norwegian’s. Sounds like an absolute shambles, but a lot of firsts.
https://breakingtheice.canterburymuseum.com/themes
Canterbury Museum, although a small museum, has a lot of interesting materials available online.
https://www.canterburymuseum.com
See also the Franklin Expedition:129 dead, no survivors.
Harald @ 12 – Well I didn’t know (or didn’t remember) about the 3 survivors until I googled! But I did re-read some of Huntford’s book recently and the ponies v dogs issue stuck in my mind, along with how much better the dogs fared with Amundsen than with Scott.
Rob –
That’s the theme of Huntsford’s book. It’s partly funny but mostly maddening the way Scott just did everything wrong and yet there’s such a cult about him.
Also Rob – yes about Shackleton. That day when the men sat down for lunch and then never ate it because there was Shackleton back to rescue them. “All well!”
Rob,
We had the good fortune to visit the International Arctic Centre when we were in Christchurch (in the pre-Covid days). Great little museum–we even got to interact with some huskies.
YNNB #16
Listen to this song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIjFpwsXhuI
Westward from the Davis Strait ’tis there ’twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones
On the theme of British heroic disasters don’t forget Operation Market Garden; the Dutch civilians who had to endure the ensuring Hunger Winter certainly don’t.
It seems to have become very fashionable among certain folk to malign Scott and portray him as some kind of upper class English idiot in the last few decades. The Huntford book is the canonical text for these people, but it is not fair on him. Amundsen was in it for one purpose-to be the first, and get the associated glory by any means necessary. His men actually thought they were going to the Arctic and he changed plans after they had already set sail! Scott on the other hand had an expedition (not a race), with half his party made up of scientists. (See Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s “The Worst Journey in the World” for an account of one of the other sub-expeditions). On the South Pole trip they collected, and still had with them at the end, between 100 and 200kg of geological samples. Amundsen certainly wasn’t carrying any rocks around. As mentioned further up, he shot a *lot* of dogs on his journey. Sir Ranulph Fiennes (a bloke who actually knows about hardarsing it in Antarctica) despised the Huntford book and points out in his biography of Scott that dogs take a lot of training to use properly which he didn’t have the resources for. He thus emphasised manhauling, actually used for decades after people stopped using dogs. Less well known is that he was also the first to experiment with snowmobiles, with petrol engines. They didn’t work well and weren’t useful, but I think it shows that Scott was innovative, and not the clueless idiot you’re portraying him as.
I would also point out that Scott and his team’s last camp was only about 14 miles from One Ton Camp, where there was a large depot of supplies. About one day’s March in okay conditions but of course they were held down by weather for a week which finished them. In “The Longest March”, Susan Solomon (atmospheric scientist, worked in Antarctica with NASA) says that they had once in a century bad conditions, and were, essentially, very unfortunate.
So I think the armchair “typical idiot white English male fucks up again” narrative is wrong.
Steve Pells – see what I said @ 10 – “This stuff is all contested – there are passionate pro-Scott people and pro-Amundsen people. What I know of it comes from Roland Huntford’s book, which is anathema to the pro-Scott people.”
Yes, Scott and his team did science, but maybe that wasn’t a brilliant idea in such an unfamiliar and dangerous part of the world. Schlepping rocks cost them a lot in time and energy on the way back from the Pole and they wound up dead, so maybe that was a mistake. Yes Amundsen was single-minded about getting to the Pole but maybe that’s what it takes in such an unknown and risky environment.
Also, see Rob’s comment about Shackleton @ 13 – not much “typical idiot white English male fucks up again” there. Shackleton, white English male, took better care of his crew than Scott did and didn’t lose a single one of them.
Not exactly polar, but on the same theme, a damn fine song:
Stan Rogers – Northwest Passage
OMFG JIM!
Fine, a different angle on Scott’s expedition!