Aussie teen sets polar record

An Australian teenager has become the youngest person ever to bag the 'Polar Hat Trick'.

Jade Hameister, a 16-year-old from Melbourne, has broken the record for traversing the North Pole, the South Pole and Greenland, the world's largest ice cap.

Her exploits involved dragging her 100kg sled packed with supplies across 1300km of icy, crevasse-ridden terrain around the globe. 

Records she's broken along the way include becoming the youngest person ever (as well as the first Australian woman) to ski from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole unsupported; the first woman to set a new route from the coast to the South Pole; and the youngest person to ski to both Poles.

Hameister's new polar route involved naming several Antarctic features after Aussie icons. Opera House Ridge, Anzac Steps, Old Mate and His Mate, and Blue Tongue Crevasse Field will all become official when the US Geological Survey ratifies them.

Hameister was just 14 in April 2016, when she became the youngest person ever to ski to the North Pole from outside the last degree.

Last year, she became the youngest woman to cross Greenland, the world's largest ice cap.

Her final challenge in the Polar Hat Trick was a gruelling 37-day, 600km journey across Antarctica in temperatures of -50 C, in conditions her guide Eric Philips told National Geographic were "the worst I have seen on a polar expedition" in his 25-year career.

Hameister enjoyed her first white Christmas in a tent eating dehydrated beef stroganoff, before battling on against icy winds to complete her day's journey.

She touches down in Melbourne tomorrow, and will now be focusing on her Year 11 studies.