First expedition to the South Pole by a blind person

The first blind person to trek to the South Pole from the Antarctic coast was former Royal Navy Officer Alan Lock (UK), between 25 November 2011 and 3 January 2012. Accompanied by two sighted team-mates, Andrew Jensen and Richard Smith, as well as guide Hannah McKeand, the expedition started from the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf and, using skis and sledges, they reached the pole 39 days later, having covered a distance of 890 kilometres (553 miles).

Lock developed macular degeneration at the age of 24 which led to rapid loss of sight. At the time of the polar trek in 2012, he had lost all central vision and had only limited blurred peripheral vision.

While Lock is the first blind person to successfully ski to the South Pole from the coast, he follows in the wake of other visually impaired adventurers to the frozen continent. In Nov 2000, guided by Doug Stoup and Damian Gildea, Miles Hilton-Barber (UK) became the first blind person to make an attempt for the South Pole. He hauled a sledge over 400 km (250 mi) across Antarctica, but frostbite prevented him from going on.

In Jan 2009, Mark Pollock (Ireland) skied to the pole as part of the Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race, along with sighted team-mates Simon O’Donnell and Inge Solheim. The race was staged to commemorate the upcoming centenary of the legendary head-to-head showdown between Roald Amundsen (Norway), whose expeditionary team became the first people to reach the South Pole on 14 Dec 1911, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition led by British explorer Robert Falcon Scott in 1911-12. Although Pollock did successfully reach the pole after 22 days (his team were the fifth out of six to cross the finish line), as the starting point was inland rather than on the coast, it does not classify as a full expedition within the polar-exploration community.

Partially sighted Paralympic skier Eric Villalón (Spain) also skied a Last Degree (i.e., the final 111 km/69 mi/60 nautical mi) to the South Pole with Jesus Noriega and Xavier Valbuena as part of a Catalan expedition in 2009.

Since losing his vision, Lock has undertaken a number of gruelling feats of endurance. These include running marathons (including the Marathon des Sables, a six-day, 251-km (156-mi) ultramarathon though the Sahara Desert, climbing many mountains (including Everest) and becoming the first visually impaired person to row across the Atlantic Ocean.

His guide, Hannah McKeand (UK), is also a record-breaking polar adventurer: she formerly held the record for the fastest female to complete a full expedition to the South Pole, solo and unsupported, logging 39 days 9 hours 33 minutes between 19 November and 28 December 2006. This has since been surpassed by Johanna Davidsson (Sweden) who skied her way to the geographic South Pole from the Hercules Inlet in 38 days 23 hours 5 minutes between 15 November and 24 December 2016.