It took him 58 days to get from the icy Hercules Inlet Bay to the South Pole. Waligóra skied alone and pulled everything he needed on a sled. The finish - on Friday the 13th - will be remembered for the rest of his life.
- I feel fulfilled like never before after any of my expeditions. This one was well planned and exactly executed from start to finish. Antarctica is a completely different desert than any I have experienced before, like Gobi, Greenland or Western Australia - Waligóra said after reaching the South Pole.
He was only the fourth Pole to achieve it.
Waligóra skied in very difficult conditions for the first two weeks. It was snowing heavily, it was windy, and the world disappeared in the whiteness that polar explorers call whiteout or white darkness. It resembles thick fog and occurs during a snowstorm or when the clouds descend very low. You can't see the surface at all, and the light is so scattered that everything loses its shadow. Another problem was snowdrifts called sastrugi - drifts of blown and frozen snow. There are places where they reach 2-3 meters and create an ice maze. Waligóra recalls that the hardest thing was when he met them for the first time, after several days of marching. - I experienced hell then, but later it wasn't so bad - he said after the end of the expedition.
The polar explorer reached the Pole on Friday, January 13, 2023, at 00:50 Chilean time.
- I didn't do any special things as a child. But I dreamed about it. And I never stopped! Remember what you dreamed about as kids. Then do it! – he wrote to the friends after reaching the finish line.
All photos by: Mateusz Waligóra
White darkness, no ice surface visible
Antarctica is a unique and boundless ice desert
Trying to survive the white darkness in the tent
Overcoming endless ice obstacles
My toughest opponent is the ice dunes - sastrugi
A break in the march for the night
Self-portrait on the march
Day 58: I conquered the South Pole!
I carried the Polish flag to the very “bottom of the planet”
Before the expedition: my equipment, myself and the thoughts swirling in my head.