BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – British adventurer Felicity Aston became the first woman to ski alone across Antarctica on Monday, hauling two sledges around crevasses and over mountains into endless headwinds, past the South Pole and onward to the coastal ice shelf, persevering for 59 days in near-total solitude.

She made it to her destination ahead of schedule, using nothing but her own strength to cover 1,084 miles from her starting point on the Leverett Glacier on Nov. 25 to Hercules Inlet.

The most surprising thing about her journey, she said, was how emotional it proved to be, from the moment she was dropped off alone, through every victory and defeat along the way.

“I’m not a particularly weepy person, and yet anyone who has been following my tweets can see me bursting into tears,” she said in an interview.

“When I saw the coastal mountains that marked my end point for the first time, I literally just stopped in my tracks and bawled my eyes out,” she added.

Aston also set another record: the first human to ski solo, across Antarctica, using only her own muscles. A male-female team earlier skied across Antarctica without kites or machines, but Aston is the first to do this alone.

Aston, 34, grew up in Kent, England, and studied physics and meteorology. A veteran of expeditions in subzero environments, she worked for the British weather service at a base in Antarctica and has led teams on ski trips in the Antarctic, the Arctic and Greenland.

But this was the first time she traveled so far, so alone, and she said the solitude posed her biggest challenge. In such an extreme environment, the smallest mistakes can prove treacherous.

“It’s quite stressful. It was just a matter of every single day, looking at my kit, and thinking what could go wrong here and what can I do to prevent it?” she said.

Aston kept family and supporters updated and received their responses via Twitter and Facebook, and broadcast daily phone reports online. She carried two satellite phones and a GPS.