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First Dane reaches South Pole on his own after 1130 kilometers

35-year-old Rasmus Kragh has reached the finish line after a 63-day expedition to the South Pole.

Rasmus Kragh is the first Dane to ski 1,130 kilometers on his own from the coast of Antarctica to the geographic South Pole. Photo: Rasmus Kragh
The Copenhagen Post

He is the first Dane to ski 1,130 kilometers on his own from the coast of Antarctica to the geographic South Pole.

“I have dug so deep mentally and physically that I don’t even know how to describe it. It will take me time to understand it and tell it,” Rasmus Kragh writes on Facebook.

The trip was longer than Kragh had expected.

He had a goal of skiing 25 kilometers a day, but in recent days that was cut down to 15 kilometers a day,

“The physical ordeal has been enormous and has worn down my body to a degree that will take a long time for me to repair, and not having physical contact with other people for 63 days has been a mental mountain and an inner journey. I look forward to seeing the night again,” writes Kragh.

Wanted a new challenge

In 2019, Rasmus Kragh was the first Dane to climb the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, without the use of artificial oxygen.

With the trip to the South Pole, he wanted to give himself a new challenge:

To walk for months in his own company in harsh weather conditions with strong winds and temperatures down to -40-50 degrees below zero.

“Sometimes the head wants more than the body can, and this time it gets it right. My body’s depots are too worn out and my muscle mass has become too small to be able to handle the longest days. It’s going too slowly and is neither safe nor sustainable,” wrote Kragh a few days ago on Facebook.

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