Rune Gjeldnes (born 20 May 1971 in

Surnadal Surnadal () is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Nordmøre region. The administrative centre is the village of Skei. Other villages in Surnadal include Glærem, Mo, Stangvik, Surnadalsøra, Sylte, Todalsøra ...

) is a Norwegian

adventurer An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

. He completed his military education in 1992, when he met fellow adventurer-to-be

Torry Larsen Torry Larsen (born 11 April 1971 in Ålesund) is a Norwegian adventurer and Arctic explorer. In 1992 he met fellow adventurer-to-be Rune Gjeldnes, also of Møre og Romsdal. Both Gjeldnes and Larsen served in the Norwegian Naval Special Operation ...

, also of

Møre og Romsdal Møre og Romsdal (; en, Møre and Romsdal) is a county in the northernmost part of Western Norway. It borders the counties of Trøndelag, Innlandet, and Vestland. The county administration is located in the town of Molde, while Ålesund is the ...

. Gjeldnes served in the Norwegian Naval Special Operations Command until 1997.

Expeditions

Together with

, Rune Gjeldnes travelled across

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

in 1996. In 1997, he planned and completed the "Arctic Ocean 2000" expedition—a 109-day, 2,100-

kilometer The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is now the measurement unit used for ex ...

trip—becoming the first to cross the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

without resupplies. In 1998, Gjeldnes and Bjørn Loe became the first to

paddle A paddle is a handheld tool with an elongated handle and a flat, widened distal end (i.e. the ''blade''), used as a lever to apply force onto the bladed end. It most commonly describes a completely handheld tool used to propel a human-powered wa ...

the Rio Merevari in

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. Gjeldnes participated in

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Mag ...

expeditions in 1997 and 1998, crossed

Baffin Island Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is , slightly larger than Spain; its population was 13,039 as of the 2021 Canadia ...

in northern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in 1998, and later the same year climbed Mt Aconcagua (). From 1999 to 2000, he again worked for the Royal Norwegian Navy (RNoN).

The Longest March

In February 2006, Rune Gjeldnes completed "The Longest March", a three-month solo ski trek across the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

region, becoming the first person to cross that area alone without being resupplied. His route went from

Queen Maud Land Queen Maud Land ( no, Dronning Maud Land) is a roughly region of Antarctica claimed by Norway as a dependent territory. It borders the claimed British Antarctic Territory 20° west and the Australian Antarctic Territory 45° east. In addit ...

, over the Pole, and on to

Terra Nova Bay Terra Nova Bay is a bay which is often ice free, about long, lying between Cape Washington and the Drygalski Ice Tongue along the coast of Victoria Land, Antarctica. It was discovered by the British National Antarctic Expedition (known as the ...

. 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

ASL American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is express ...

in order to reach his destination. The distance is the equivalent of the distance between New York City and San Francisco by road across the United States. 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

, the South Pole and

without resupply.

References

Aftenposten ( in the masthead; ; Norwegian for "The Evening Post") is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen) and estimated 1.2 million ...

'', 3 February 2006
RNoN The Longest March page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gjeldnes, Rune 1971 births Living people Royal Norwegian Navy personnel People from Møre og Romsdal People from Surnadal

Expeditions

The Longest March

References

External links