To The South Pole by Sled

By Anastasia Toufexis

"Here we are! Hooray!" Those were modest words for a momentous achievement. They came in a radio message from a six-man team of adventurers and scientists that reached the South Pole last week after a 3,213-km (1,992-mile) trek across Antarctica by dogsled. The expedition was the first to reach the pole by dogsled since Roald Amundsen beat Robert Scott there 78 years ago. But impressive as the feat is, it marks only the midpoint of an even more ambitious journey: a 6,450-km (4,000-mile) campaign that would be the first dogsled trip across the entire frozen continent.

The seven-month, $11 million Trans-Antarctica Expedition was conceived by wilderness lovers Will Steger, 45, a Minnesotan who earlier led a historic dogsled trek to the North Pole, and Jean-Louis Etienne, 43, a French physician. Their purpose was to draw attention to the increasingly endangered continent and to foster the international cooperation that can preserve it. The team, whose other members come from the Soviet Union, China, Japan and Britain, is conducting a variety of studies. Among them: recording ozone levels, air temperatures and wind speeds, and taking samples of snow that will be analyzed for pollutants.

Still, it is the classic clash of man against nature that has inspired the most interest. The journey began smoothly on July 27, when the six explorers, 36 dogs and three sleds, each loaded with nearly 450 kg (1,000 lbs.) of food and gear, left the base of the Seal Nunataks mountains and started gliding across the Antarctic Peninsula. But Antarctica's ferocity proved to be stunning. Although it is now summer there, windblown snow has produced near- zero visibility, and frozen drifts have periodically caused the heavily < laden sleds to tip over.

In September a blizzard with winds of up to 160 kph (100 m.p.h.), temperatures as low as -43 degrees C (-45 degrees F) and wind chill of -79 degrees C (-110 degrees F) kept the team tent-bound for 13 days. Said Steger when he reached the Patriot Hills campsite in early November: "There were some pretty black moments when I could see the desperation of other explorers like Scott." The British adventurer and his party perished of cold and hunger after reaching the South Pole.

Steger's expedition has been better supplied than Scott's was. Fuel and food have been stashed at prearranged sites along the expedition's route. Each man wears 4.5 kg (10 lbs.) of insulated clothing and consumes daily some 1,030 g (36 oz.) of a high-energy diet (5,000 calories are needed just to maintain weight).

The dogs are well protected too. Bred by Steger, they are hybrids of Siberian husky, malamute and timber wolf. They are fed a high-protein diet and are outfitted with jackets and booties. Even so, the journey has been brutal for the animals. Fifteen of them became so exhausted that they had to be airlifted out temporarily to Patriot Hills. One of Steger's favorites, an eight-year-old named Tim who had gone with him to the North Pole, died during the blizzard.

The latest threat to the expedition came when lack of fuel grounded the plane that was supposed to drop food for the next leg of the journey. But the Soviets came up with a solution: they sold the team 12 tons of fuel from their South Pole depot. From the pole, the explorers plan to tramp 1,210 km (750 miles) to the Soviet scientific base at Vostok. That will take them through a zone never before crossed on foot and known as the Area of Inaccessibility.

As the team members packed up for the second half of the campaign, their most pressing concern was time: they have fallen ten days behind schedule. They must reach their final destination, the coastal Soviet station at Mirnyy, by early March, or they will have to stay there through Antarctica's fearsome winter.

With reporting by Andrea Dorfman/New York