QUEEN MAUD LAND (Antarctica) ? With the first-ever jump from one of the most spectacular and diffult mountains in the whole Antarctic, Russian climber and BASE jumper Valery Rozov accomplished another milestone in his extraordinary extreme sport career. There were two weeks of preparations in difficult climbing conditions including temperatures of minus 30 degrees ahead of the expedition.

It is hard to imagine a more remote and foreign corner of the globe than the Drygalski Mountains. Extreme sport pro Valery Rozov felt a magic attraction to this location in Queen Maud Land in the East Antarctic. The mountains soar like fangs of wild animals from the thousand-meter thick sheets of ice. Rozov sought the highest of the mountain peaks, the Ulvetanna (Norwegian for Wolfs Tooth), to climb and then jump off. The man from Moscow has attracted attention around the world in recent years with his spectacular BASE jumps, including a leap from the highest point of European Elbrus, or more recently into an active volcano on Kamchatka.

With its most recent project, the ?Red Bull Antarctica Project? — an eight-member team from Russia, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey ? Rozov was not only the protagonist but above all the head of the project.

They first flew from South Africa to the Russian Antarctic research station Novolazareyskaya and then from there they flew a further 200 kilometers with a smaller transport plane to the foot of the Drygalski Mountains. ?I felt like a cosmonaut on a foreign star,? Rozov said, describing the conditions where temperatures fell to 30 degrees below zero and the sun stayed up for 24 hours.

After two weeks of preparations, Rozov climbed the 1,000-meter high face of the Ulvetanna together with his climbing colleague Alexander Ruchkin and mountain photographer Thomas Senf. With his Wingsuit he then flew 45 seconds in front of the cliffs before later pulling the chord on his parachute and land! ing safe ly. Because the team had to wait for the transport plane and the weather was unusually stable, Rozov spontaneously decided to climb two more mountains ? the Tungespissen (2,277 meters) and the Holtanna (2,650 meters), which is he only mountain in the Antarctic that had previously been used by a BASE jumper.

Once he was back in South Africa, ?BASE Climber? Rozov described the experience: ?It was like a journey to a foreign planet,? he said. ?It?s deeply satisfying and has given me a long and lasting feeling of happiness.?

*BASE is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: B for buildings, A for antennae, S for spans and E for earth/cliffs.

Pictures free for editorial use: Predrag Vuckovic and Thomas Senf for Global-Newsroom