Mount Friesland

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Mount Friesland is a 1,700-metre mountain on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. It is part of Friesland Ridge in the Tangra Mountains and is one of the ridge’s two main summits, the other being St. Boris Peak. The peak is connected to nearby ridges: to the west it links with Pliska Ridge and Bowles Ridge, to the east with Presian Ridge and Lyaskovets Peak, and to the south-southwest with The Synagogue.

The mountain is heavily glaciated and crevassed, standing above Hunt Glacier to the west, Perunika Glacier to the north-northwest, Huron Glacier to the northeast, and Macy Glacier to the southeast. The weather in the area is notoriously harsh.

History and naming: the peak has been known since the early 1800s under several spellings, with Friesland being the current spelling. Nearby Barnard Point is a separate feature named to preserve historical memory of the area.

First ascent: Mount Friesland was climbed on 30 December 1991 by Francesc Sàbat and Jordi Enrique, starting from the Juan Carlos I Base. Other notable ascents include a 2003 climb by Damien Gildea, John Bath, and Rodrigo Fica, who produced a new map of the island, and a Bulgarian ascent in 2004 by Lyubomir Ivanov and Doychin Vasilev, both using the Sàbat–Enrique eastern route via Camp Academia, Catalunyan Saddle, and Presian Ridge.

Elevation estimates have varied as ice conditions change. Modern surveys place the height around 1,700 metres, with small differences compared to nearby peaks depending on the dataset.