Ice In Her Veins

When many teenagers aren’t allowed to walk to school, 16-year-old Jade Hameister has become the youngest person to cross the North and South Poles.

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Try to imagine a cold so intense that, if you throw a cup of tea in the air, the liquid will have frozen before it hits the ground. A cold so fierce itfreezes everything: your sweat, your breath, the cheese and sausages you planned to eat for lunch, your toothpaste and your pigtails.

That was the minus-50-degree cold that 16-year-old Jade Hameister dealt with every day for 37 days as she became the first-ever woman to travel a new route from the coast to the South Pole, unsupported and unassisted. Dressed in six layers of thermals, fleeces, shell and down jackets, she pushed into 40 knot headwinds, lugging a 100kg sled behind her.