21-year-old Norwegian woman becomes youngest person to reach South Pole on skis, her team says
A 21-year-old Norwegian woman has become the youngest person to reach the South Pole on skis, solo and without assistance, her team told AFP on Tuesday.
Karen Kylleso accomplished the feat overnight between Monday and Tuesday, 114 years after fellow Norwegian and polar explorer Roald Amundsen became the first person to reach the South Pole.
Kylleso, born on May 9, 2003, covered the 702 miles in just under 54 days.
“It’s a page written in polar history,” her mentor, Norwegian adventurer Lars Ebbesen, told AFP.
Kylesso posted images on Instagram of her reaching the South Pole.
The young Scandinavian thereby dethroned Pierre Hedan of France, who, according to Guinness World Records, held the record for being the youngest person to reach the South Pole, solo and unassisted, at the age of 26.
He set the record on January 7, 2024.
Kylleso, who is just 5 feet tall and weighs 106 pounds, pulled a sled weighing 100 kilos, or twice her weight, in her bid to reach the pole.
In a November interview with adventure company Shackleton, Kylleso said that “gaining weight has been one of the hardest parts.”
“Since I’m smaller than the average male doing this, I need extra weight and strength to pull the same load,” she said, adding that she built up her body weight by 10% before the expedition.
Kylleso arrived late on Monday night in temperatures of around -25 degrees Celsius (-13 degrees Fahrenheit).
She is already the youngest girl to cross Greenland on skis, completing the feat at the age of 15, in 2018.
“She had barely even arrived (in Greenland) before she asked me: ‘Do you think I can also go to the South Pole?'” recalled Ebbesen.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store hailed the young adventurer on Tuesday, saying she was “following in the trails of Norwegian polar heroes”.
On December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen became the first person to reach the geographic South Pole, part of a tragic race against Britain’s Robert Scott who died of exhaustion and cold on the return journey along with his four companions.
Kylleso’s accomplishment comes just a few years after Preet Chandi skied solo to the South Pole, becoming the first woman of color to achieve the feat. “I want to encourage people to, you know, be proud of their skin color and proud of where they’re from,” the Brit told CBS News. “It took me a really long time to be proud of that.”