Rune Gjeldnes

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Rune Gjeldnes
1971-
On 25 November 2005, part way across the polar plateau, Rune Gjeldnes marks the 100th anniversary of King Haakon VII's arrival in Norway
Place of birth	Surnadal, Norway
Allegiance	Norway
Years of service	?-1997, 1999-2000
Unit	Marinejegerkommandoen
Other work	Extreme adventures.

Rune Gjeldnes (born May 20, 1971, in Surnadal, Norway) is a Norwegian adventurer. He completed his military education in 1992, where he met fellow adventurer-to-be Torry Larsen, also of Møre og Romsdal. Gjeldnes served in the Norwegian Naval Special Operations Command until 1997.

[edit] Expeditions

Together with Torry Larsen, Rune Gjeldnes travelled across Greenland in 1996. In 1997 he planned and completed the "Arctic Ocean 2000" expedition–a 109-day, 2,100 kilometer trip—becoming the first to cross the Arctic Ocean without resupplies. In 1998 Gjeldnes and Bjørn Loe became the first to paddle the Rio Merevari in Venezuela. Rune participated in North Pole expeditions in 1997 and 1998, crossed Baffin Island in northern Canada in 1998, and later the same year climbed Mt Aconcagua (6,959 m/22,831 ft). From 1999 to 2000 he again worked for the Royal Norwegian Navy (RNoN).

[edit] The Longest March

In February 2006, Rune Gjeldnes completed "The Longest March", a three-month 4,800 kilometer solo ski trek across the South Pole region, becoming the first person to cross that area alone without being resupplied. His route went from Queen Maud Land, over the Pole, and on to Terra Nova Bay. The final couple of weeks of the journey had to be made on foot, as Gjeldnes had lost one of his mountain skis off his sled, this before having to descend a glacier of 2,000 m (~6,500 ft) a.s.l. in order to reach his destination. The distance is the equivalent of the North Cape of Norway to Cairo in Egypt plus 300 km. The expedition had a scientific element as Gjeldnes took regular blood samples of himself to be used in studies of the human immune system under extreme conditions.

He now holds the records of the longest ski journey without being resupplied and the longest ski journey generally. He is the only person to ski across the North Pole, the South Pole and Greenland without resupplement.