Teenager to make South Pole trek Parker Liautaud, a 19-year-old geology student at Yale University, and expedition partner Doug Stoup, will depart from the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica on December 3 and ski 397 miles (640km) to the South Pole. These include setting up a lightweight weather station which has never before been used in Antarctica and is designed to collect and transmit meteorological information every half-hour. Snow samples collected during the journey will reveal the composition of oxygen isotopes at various depths to understand the effects of climate change. Mr Liautaud, who was born in California but was brought up in the UK, has already skied to the North Pole three times, making his first journey in 2009 at the age of 14 accompanied by the British polar explorer Robert Swan. He said: "On the 3rd December 2013, I leave the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica to ski 397 miles (640km) unsupported from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole in the hope of breaking the 22-day speed record. At 19 years old I hope to also become the youngest man to ski to the South Pole. Along the way I will be collecting snow samples which we hope will provide a valuable contribution to our understanding of Antarctic climate. Dominic Casserley of Willis Group, which is sponsoring the Willis Resilience Expedition, added: "We look forward to cheering Parker on as he embarks on what will not just be an extraordinary adventure, but a true test of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity."