16-year-old girl skis to bottom of the world

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16-year-old girl skis to bottom of the world

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Amelia Hempleman-Adams, a 16-year-old became the youngest person to ski to the bottom of the world.

09 December,2011 11:19 am

Amelia Hempleman-Adams, a 16-year-old schoolgirl whose father was the first Briton to reach the South Pole solo and unsupported, on Friday became the youngest person to ski to the bottom of the world.She joined her adventurer dad David Hempleman-Adams on the two-week, 97-mile (156-kilometre) trek to the South Pole from explorer Ernest Shackletons Farthest South Point, where he had to turn back in 1907.The nine-strong party completed the journey at 0130 GMT Friday after a final 14-mile push.Im really proud to have actually made it and just really happy, Amelia Hempleman-Adams told AFP by satellite phone from the South Pole.Its really exciting to be able to achieve something like this.It hasnt quite sunk in yet that weve actually made it because its been such a tough journey but Im sure it will in the next few days.We arrived here and we all just hugged each other and congratulated each other and it was really nice to finally get here. The teenage explorer took her homework with her but her father threw it out of the sledge, saying it would be too heavy.She did take some with her -- geography, as it happens -- but by the time you get into the tent at night its too late to even think about doing anything, she said.Hempleman-Adams had a few hours at the pole before boarding a plane back to the Union Glacier base, near the Antarctic coast, before flying back to Punta Arenas in southern Chile on Saturday.Guinness World Records said the record for the youngest person to trek overland to the South Pole without the use of dogs or motorised vehicles was set by Canadian Sarah Ann McNair-Landry, who was 18 when she reached the Pole on January 11, 2005.She made the 1,100-kilometre (680-mile) kite-assisted trip as part of an unsupported expedition led by her mother.At 16, Amelia could be on course to break the current Guinness World Record, a spokesman told AFP.We look forward to hearing from Amelias party so that we can look into verifying this feat.Hempleman-Adams said seeing what her fathers expeditions were all about had been her aim, rather than rewriting the record books.I didnt really do it to go out and get a record. I just wanted the experience, especially with my dad. Im really proud to finish it, she said.She spent time training in a frozen food storage facility in southwest England.Shackletons granddaughter Alexandra Shackleton had given Hempleman-Adams a photograph of her grandfather to take to the Pole.The teenage adventurer said she was looking forward to a hot shower. She said: Its really blue skies, just whit