South Pole Christmas 4 Long-Awaited Guests by Ella Derbyshire

Nikon D80's

This panorama captures the arrival of 2 Finnish skiers who travelled from Hercules Inlet on the Antarctic coast to the Geographic South Pole across 700 miles of Antarctic's cold white and blue landscape.

Poppis Suomela and Pasi Ikonen arrived at the South Pole in the early evening hours of Christmas Day. We watched their approach from the time that they appeared as 2 very tiny new dots on the horizon. Here you see them hours later and much closer from the vantage point of the elevated station's observation deck. Station personnel met the travellers and escorted them to the geographic South Pole, which is close to where they placed their tent.

Dominating the scene behind them is the drill camp of Operation Ice Cube, which is South Pole's neutrino telescope. Take a look at some of the vehicles that are designed for use in extreme climates such as ours at the bottom of the world.

The 14 images of this panorama were captured with a Nikon D-80 and stitched with Autopano Pro.