At 0130 BST this morning, 6.30 pm local time, Mark Beaumont reached the 1996 position of the Magnetic North Pole with the Row to the Pole team, lead by Scottish explorer Jock Wishart.  The six-man team's achievement makes them the first rowing team ever to row to any pole position, having rowed 450 miles from Resolute Bay.

The Row to the Pole expedition, which set out on 1st August from Resolute Bay, had a relatively straightforward start, with the team rowing in t-shirts and making rapid progress towards their goal.  But two weeks in an icy north wind and heavy sea fog saw the team battling through treacherous ice-fields, becoming trapped at one point for 18 hours as they frantically rowed around in circles trying to find a path out of the sea ice.

The fourth week of the expedition proved the toughest by far as temperatures dropped and the team rowed day and night to get as far north as possible whilst the weather allowed.  After being cornered by high winds and and fast moving ice floes on the north shore of the Grinnell Peninsula, Mark and the team made the most of a small window in the weather to dash across to Table Island and Cornwall Island before heading towards their destination on the island of Ellef Ringness.

After another couple of days stranded on Thor Island a break in the weather allowed the team to tackle the remaining 50 miles of the row.  Their final test came as the ice prevented any further progress and the team were forced to haul their 1.3 ton boat across the sea ice for close to ten hours to complete the final two miles of their expedition.

Freezing winds, impassable ice and close encounters with polar bears have made for a very different expedition experience for Mark, who previously completed two solo-cycling expeditions.  He has enjoyed being part of a team in this “breathtakingly barren but beautiful part of the world” in the what was the first polar rowing expedition since Shackleton's epic row across the Weddell Sea in 1916.

We look forward to Mark’s documentary of the expedition later this year.  You can read more about the Row to the Pole expedition on the BBC Scotland website or the Row to the Pole website.