Kerry man half-way to the South Pole

Far from Santa Claus and Lapland this Christmas, a Kerry mountaineer has reached the halfway stage on his epic trek across Antarctica.

Mike Barry (50), a father of three from Tralee, is part of an international expedition on a 1,200 kilometre hike to the South Pole. If he is successful, Barry will become the first Irishman to have reached the bottom of the world - a target almost attained by fellow countyman, Tom Crean, some nine decades ago.

This weekend, his party of five made it to the Thiels mountains where they were due to celebrate a belated Christmas dinner with a vital food cache. The group's leader is a woman - US/Canadian polar traveller and guide, Matty McNair, who has been to the South Pole once, and who led the first female expedition to the North Pole in 1997.

Also participating are three Englishmen - Hong Kong-based pilot Ray Middleton (43), financial publisher and former British army officer, Alex Blyth (42) and commercial lawyer Iain Morpeth (49).

Mike Barry is a highly experienced mountaineer and director of the renewable energy company, Saorgus Energy. A member of three major Himalayan expeditions, including the first and successful Irish attempt on Mount Everest in 1993, Barry was the first Irishman to climb Aconcagua in Argentina. He was also part of the 1997 South Aris endeavour to trace the famous Shackleton/Crean rescue across the Southern Ocean after Shackleton's ship became trapped in pack ice in 1915.

Barry and company are covering up to 16 miles a day on foot and on skis, in snow, biting winds and sub-zero temperatures, having set out from Hercules inlet on the edge of the Antarctic ice cap on December 2nd. The group expects to reach the South Pole at an altitude of 2,800 metres in late January, from where the party will be airlifted out.

Barry made contact with his wife, Mags, in Kerry on Christmas Day, and was in good spirits, she told The Irish Times. It is all just "sheer plod, plod", she remarked. The Kerry climber is financing his share of the expedition's costs from his own resources, but hopes to raise funds for Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, from a post-expedition lecture and slide tour.