KOREAN NET

Mountaineer Kim Young-mi, 44, captain of the North Face Athlete Team, has traveled solo across Antarctica, covering 1,700 km in the process. She is shown celebrating at the end point of the continent. (Kim’s Instagram account)

By Kim Seon Ah

The nation's top mountaineer Kim Young-mi has completed a solo trek across Antarctica, covering 1,700 km.

On Jan. 17 at 12:13 a.m. in Antarctica, she finished her trip across the frozen continent alone after 69 days, eight hours and 31 minutes, covering approximately 1,700 km. As the captain of the North Face Athlete Team, Kim, 44, on Dec. 27 last year at 6:44 p.m. reached the South Pole after a solo journey spanning 49 days and three hours from Hercules Inlet that started on Nov. 8.

"I'm happy to have completed my journey through Antarctica that I'd imagined and dreamed of," Kim said on her Instagram account. "This journey made me realize how weak a human I am in front of the great nature of the South Pole and how I poured out at once the patience I learned and experienced daily from mountains."

Kim is the youngest Korean to scale the highest peaks on all seven continents and the world's first to climb Mount Amput in the Himalayas. She also made a solo crossing of Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia, in 2017.

The Korea Alpine Federation said, "Capt. Kim has achieved a tremendous feat that will long be remembered in the history of the nation's polar expedition in reaching the South Pole in 2023 and crossing Antarctica alone."

sofiakim218@korea.kr