Pole of inaccessibility
The pole of inaccessibility marks a polar location that is the most challenging to reach owing to its remoteness from geographical features which could provide access. The term is of interest mostly to explorers and conspiracy theorists.
- Southern Pole of Inaccessibility (85°50'S, 65°47'E). A spot on the Antarctic continent at a point most distant from the surrounding ocean. It is located 288 miles from the South Pole. The surface elevation is 12,198 feet. It reached in 1957 by a Soviet Antarctic Expedition for International Geophysical Year research work. The station was named Sovetskaya. Today a building still remains at this site, marked by a statue of Vladimir Lenin, and is protected as a historical site.
- Northern Pole of Inaccessibility (84°03'N 174°51'W). Located on the Arctic Ocean pack ice at a distance farthest from any land mass. It is 411 miles from the North Pole, 903 miles north of Barrow, Alaska, and equidistant from the closest landmasses, Ellesmere Island and Franz-Josef Land 680 miles away. It was reached by Sir Hubert Wilkins in 1927 by airplane. Due to the constant motion of the pack ice, no permanent structure exists at the pole.
See also pole, North Pole, and South Pole.
