South Pole
In midsummer, as the sun reaches its maximum elevation of about 23.5 degrees, high temperatures at the South Pole in January average at . As the six-month "day" wears on and the sun gets lower, temperatures drop as well: they reach around sunset (late March) and sunrise (late September). In midwinter, the average temperature remains steady at around . The highest temperature ever recorded at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station was on Christmas Day, 2011, and the lowest was on June 23, 1982 (for comparison, the lowest temperature directly recorded anywhere on earth was at Vostok Station on July 21, 1983, though was measured indirectly by satellite in East Antarctica between Dome A and Dome F in August 2010). Mean annual temperature at the South Pole is -49.3 °C (-56.7 °F).
Tom Avery
In 2002 Avery at age 25 became the youngest Briton ever to ski to the South Pole. The Commonwealth South Pole Centenary Expedition was the ninth major expedition that he had organised and was the culmination of two years' planning. Following a training trip in New Zealand, the small party of four flew to Antarctica in early November 2002, beginning their expedition from Hercules Inlet. On 28 December 2002, 45 days and 6 hours later, Avery's team completed the journey to the South Pole. They broke the South Pole speed record by using kites to power them across the ice, much like the modern sport of kitesurfing. They covered the last to the Pole in a marathon final 31 hours.
Based largely on his Antarctic journal, Avery published "Pole Dance" as his first book. Written in a diary form, it details the 2002 South Pole expedition.