Michele Pontrandolfo lives in Pordenone, in the north of Italy, and was born in 1971.
He has been practicing sport in all its forms for 30 years. At a very young age, he started attending amateur sports groups, practicing the cross-country running. He started to go to the mountains at the age of 12, walking among the Alpine passes and the Friulian Dolomites. The school process continues by studying advertising graphics.
After serving in the Italian Army, in 1994 he acquired the international license for sport parachuting, making over 400 launches in free fall from the quota of 4,000 and 5,700 meters. In 1997 he attended the speleology course at the Pordenone Board of Education (USP in Pordenone), doing an intense speleological activity.
To this day he is the only Italian to have tried three times the mother of all expeditions: the solo Artic Ocean crossing until the Geographic North Pole. He first has crossed the whole of Greenland from east to west and then from south to north; he has crossed the fourth largest glacier in the world in four different expeditions, he has reached the Geomagnetic and Magnetic North Pole all alone, he has organised two expeditions in Antarctica in 2015 and 2016.
In total, he made 18 polar expeditions, of which 13 solo.
He has written two books about his exploits: “Stella in capo al mondo” (Star to the world’s end) (Publishing House: Editoriale Scienza) with Andrea Valente in 2008 and “Viaggio dentro al ghiaccio” (Journey into the Ice) (Publishing House: Biblioteca dell’Immagine, 2010).
I rely only on my strength. To me this means to make a polar crossing in pure exploratory ethics, that is solo, without air supplies and any intermediate food storage: only me and a pair of skis, with which I tow a sled in which all the necessary material is stowed for my survival. It is necessary a lot of strength and concentration to tow that huge weight on ice crests, blocks of drifting ice floe and threatening waterways. These are the only tools at my disposal, the only resources I have, my strength. Since I started, this is the philosophy that is the basis of my every choice in conceiving and organising the polar crossings.
He has collaborated with Rai, Mediaset and Sky for years.
Crossings:
– East-West Greenland 2000;
– Iceland 2003 Vatnajokull;
– Geomagnetic North Pole 2004 (from Greenland);
– Iceland 2005 Vatnajokull;
– Geomagnetic North Pole 2006 (from Canada);
– Svalbard 2007;
– Ellesmere 2008;
– Iceland 2008 Vatnajokull;
– Hielo Continental Sur2008 (from Chile);
– Magnetic North Pole 2009;
– Geographic North Pole 2010;
– Geographic North Pole 2011;
– Iceland 2011 Vatnajokull;
– South-North Greenland 2012;
– Geographic North Pole 2014;
– Antarctica 2015;
– Antarctica 2016.
