Climber and adventurer Leo Houlding has completed a 1,000 mile snowkiting expedition across the Greenland ice cap.

Cumbria’s mountaineering poster boy was accompanied by his friend and experienced snowkiter, Bruce Corrie, who lives near Kendal.

They covered the distance – using a snowboard pulled by a kite – in under three weeks, despite being confined to their tent for days in a row during whiteout conditions.

This was Leo’s debut snowkiting expedition and his companion’s first major expedition of any type.

The pair snowkited from Kangerlussuaq in south west Greenland and finished in Qaanaaq, one of the most northerly towns on earth.

They completed the distance in 18 days, battling difficult weather and challenging terrain – and each towing loads weighing 135kg.

They also had to deal with obstacles such as sastrugi, wave-like ridges up to a metre in height on the surface of the snow.

They both added to the technical difficulty of the snowkiting and also pounded their knees.

Despite all of this, the intrepid duo covered an average of 55 miles a day.

They used the latest snowkiting equipment during their expedition, along with cold weather clothing by Berghaus.

People followed their progress via a GPS tracker and social media.

Leo said: “This was my first long distance polar expedition and a great learning experience.

“It was more challenging than I expected partly due to untypical weather depositing lots of snow, terrible visibility and strange wind patterns.

“But also because snowkiting is much more technically difficult than you may imagine.”

Despite the conditions, the grueling journey also brought spectacular sights for the duo.

Leo added: “Although we had some tough conditions, the last day was epic – 110 miles of high speed kiting on great terrain in the sun and then a six hour descent on foot from the ice cap to the fjord was for both of us our best day of kiting ever.”