Kerry mountaineer Mike Barry has crossed the 88 degree parallel in Antarctica and has less than 120 miles to cover on his 700-mile/1,200-kilometre trek to the South Pole. Lorna Siggins reports.
However, the last week has been "very tough", he admitted this week by satellite phone, with very high winds, and temperatures as low as minus 41 degrees Celsius.
"It was a total white out, we couldn't see in front of us, and so we kept bumping into sastrugis (wind-sculpted snow columns). It was like moving around a room full of furniture in the dark," he told The Irish Times. "Our eyelashes froze, and boogies (nose drips) turned into small icicles in seconds," he said.
The difficult conditions reduced the group's average daily mileage down from 16 miles at best to about 10 miles, Mr Barry said. The former Everest mountaineer, wind energy consultant and father of three from Tralee, is part of an international group - one of several in the South Pole at present.
Leading the group is US/Canadian polar traveller and guide Ms Matty McNair and fellow participants are Hong Kong-based pilot Ray Middleton (43), financial publisher and former Army officer Alex Blyth (42) and commercial lawyer Iain Morpeth (49).
Mr Barry has now gone further than fellow Kerryman Tom Crean, who was a member of both Scott and Shackleton polar expeditions.
He is also just 30 miles short of the Irish record set by Sir Ernest Shackleton - who turned back some 90 miles from the South Pole on his 1907-9 Antarctic expedition.
If he reaches 90 degrees south in 10 days, he will be the first Irishman to have reached the bottom of the world.
"And unlike Amundsen and fellow polar explorers, I don't have to walk back out," he said.
The group will be flown out of the Scott-Amundsen Research Station when weather conditions suit.
The group is now on the polar plateau, at just under 9,000 feet, where winds are forecast to ease.
"So far, the wind hasn't quite died as we expected," Mr Barry said earlier this week. "However, we have seen some spectacular skies during the 23 hours of light here. We saw several sundogs or horizontal rainbows above the sun at the weekend, which were quite extraordinary.
"Mind you, when you are trudging through flat snow and ice for days on end, anything can look extraordinary."
He said that spirits were generally good, but he and some of his team mates have developed "crow's foot" - caused by catching the 70-kilo pulks or sledges they are pulling on their heels.
The daily routine involves rising at 6.30 a.m., packing up their tents, and taking turns to lead in single file - with breaks every 90 minutes for food. "We can't stop for more than 15 minutes or we freeze," he said.
A member of three major Himalayan expeditions, including the first and successful Irish attempt on Mount Everest in 1993, Mr Barry was the first Irishman to climb Aconcagua in Argentina. He was also part of the 1997 South Aris endeavour to trace the famous Shackleton/Crean rescue across the Southern Ocean after Shackleton's ship became trapped in pack ice in 1915. Earlier this year he was part of an Irish climbing trip to Greenland.
The Kerry climber is financing his share of the expedition's costs from his own resources, but hopes to raise funds from a post-expedition lecture/slide tour for Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin.