In 1993, Jerry Shepard is a guide at an Antarctica research base under contract with the National Science Foundation. UCLA professor, Dr. Davis McClaren, arrives at the base. He presses Shepard to take him to Mount Melbourne to find a rare meteorite from Mercury. Because of the hazardous conditions of the ice, vehicles traveling to the mountain would likely be too heavy to stay on the surface. Shepard decides that the only way to get to Mount Melbourne is by dog sled.