The two Finns have reached the Pole!
Published on 29.12.2008 - Finnish South Pole Expedition 2008
The two Finns really stepped on the gas, as it were, during the final days of their adventure. And on 24th December, they reached the Pole.
They skied for 10, 11 and then 12 hours a day to reach their goal as quickly as they could. In fact, Kari and Pasi wanted to get to the South Pole before the end of Christmas Eve. Why? Because that's what they had always decided to do. And what a Finn wants, a Finn gets...
Having said that, their final assault on the Pole was no picnic. As they were sleeping less and less so that they could cover as many kilometres as possible during the day, they often found themselves dropping off to sleep, even as they were skiing along. Which can of course be extremely dangerous on terrain like that, where you have to concentrate for every second so that you don't fall into a crevasse or break something on a sastruggi.
The soft snow made skiing difficult, too, in the last few days...
The update they had been longing to send back was published on the evening of Christmas Eve. They reached the Pole after skiing 94 kilometres in their final 36 hours on the ice. In fact they skied for an incredible 19 hours on their last day! In all, the trek from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole took them 43 days and 5 hours. "Poppis is now just one of twelve people in the world to have skied to both Poles without outside assistance," wrote his companion.
