Dixie Dansercoer is an explorer, endurance athlete and photographer.

As a student, he spent a year in Moscow, Idaho

Moscow, Idaho

Moscow is a city in northern Idaho, situated along the Washington/Idaho border. It is the most populous city and county seat of Latah County and the home of the University of Idaho, the land grant institution and primary research university for the state...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 with AFS Intercultural Programs

AFS Intercultural Programs

AFS Intercultural Programs was established in 1915 by A. Piatt Andrew, a onetime economics professor at Harvard University and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury...

 in 1980.

He has held records or won prizes for high altitude mountain biking, windsurfing, ultramarathon

Ultramarathon

An ultramarathon is any sporting event involving running longer than the traditional marathon length of .There are two types of ultramarathon events: those that cover a specified distance, and events that take place during specified time...

 running and expedition film-making. In 1997-8, he made a record-breaking crossing of Antarctica with Alain Hubert.

In 2006, the European Space Agency

European Space Agency

The European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...

 commissioned Hubert and him to measure snow cover in the Arctic so that they could calibrate measurements taken with the CryoSat 2 satellite. The two left Cape Arkticheskiy, Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

 on 1 March 2007. They reached the North Pole

North Pole

The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...

 after 55 days and Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

in another 51 days, the first time anyone had walked from Siberia to Greenland.