The Trans-Antarctica Expedition Mr. Steger writes about in "Crossing Antarctica" (Knopf, 304 pages, $25) was born of the ambitions of Mr. Steger and Jean-Louis Etienne, who met in 1986 in the middle of separate arctic journeys. Mr. Steger was leading the first confirmed unsupported dog-sled expedition to the North Pole and Dr. Etienne was making the first solo ski there. They met in Mr. Steger's tent, shared tea and their Antarctic dreams and exchanged phone numbers. But why would anyone back a trip to the South Pole, where all the firsts seemed to have been garnered long ago? Norwegian Roald Amundsen had been there first, followed a month later by British Royal Navy Capt. Robert Scott in December and January of 1911-12. More Britishers had crossed Antarctica with tracked vehicles in 1958 and 1981. Another trio had skied "in the footsteps of Scott" in 1986. What was left? In answer, Messrs. Steger and Etienne decided to ski and dog-sled across the continent by the longest possible route, a trek that took them from July 27 until March 3. The success of Trans-Antarctica owed a lot to the pride, resilience, determination and widely different skills and personalities of the men involved: Geoff Somers, stubborn, taciturn and wryly humorous, an expert dog-sled driver and veteran of the British Antarctic Survey; Victor Boyarsky, a boisterous, mercurial, Soviet glaciologist; Keizo Funatsu, a quiet, conscientious Japanese with spiritual reserves, devoted to his dogs; and Qin Dahe, a dedicated Chinese scientist. When I traveled with these men and their dog teams for three days in the Minnesota wilderness in February 1989, it was Mr. Qin's first experience with skis, sled dogs or communicating at length in the English language. Clearly no athlete, his command of all three was shaky. None of that bothered Mr. Steger, who was more interested in Mr. Qin's fierce determination to share camp chores and pull his weight in subzero cold. "Dahe will do well," Mr. Steger decided, a judgment vindicated over 3,741 miles in windchills sometimes approaching minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Mr. Steger is also a keen judge of dogs, who share equally in the credit for Trans-Antarctica. Because their lives depended on the dogs, the men knew them all intimately, their strengths and foibles. They were inspired by their canine colleagues and despaired when they sometimes wilted from exhaustion. The death en route of Tim, half wolf, became the focus of a rift between Messrs. Steger and Somers. The hardships that the party faced were tremendous, but familiar polar fare. Men and dogs stumbled forward in snowy whiteouts, fell into and rescued one another from crevasses. Storms slowed them early and confined them to their tents for days on the Antarctic Peninsula and buried some food caches irretrievably under drifts of snow, gravely imperiling the expedition. Bone-chilling head winds froze painful cracks in their fingers and faces, sapping the strength of men and dogs. Within 16 miles of the end, Mr. Funatsu stepped out in a storm to tend his dog team and couldn't find his way back. Feared dead, he was found 13 hours later, 300 feet from his tent near a ditch he had scraped in the snow with a pair of pliers. Trans-Antarctica faced such problems with a different style than Amundsen, Scott, Ernest Shackleton and explorers who traveled in an age when leaders gave orders and the rest followed. Amundsen consulted his teammates but his leadership was authoritarian, and the Scott expedition followed Royal Navy traditions of command. Mr. Steger is a leader of a different stripe: experienced, laid back, determined and flexible. "Those who get into trouble in places like Antarctica," he writes, "are those who . . . fall back on a stringent system, either philosophical or physical. You must be willing to bend. You cannot allow nature, or an undertaking, to imprison you, no matter its rigors." As polar literature, Mr. Steger's account, written with Jon Bowermaster, cannot equal the technical fascination of Amundsen's "The South Pole." Nor can it approach the tragic drama of Apsley Cherry-Garrard's "The Worst Journey in the World," which recounts the death of Scott's party after much agony only 11 miles from a cache of food and fuel. The photographs are good, but lack the breathtaking scenery of "A Walk to the Pole" by Roger Mear and Robert Swan. "Crossing Antarctica" succeeds, however, as a clear and factual account of modern man pitting himself against the elements, bending before the blast, suffering, sacrificing, enduring and prevailing. --- Mr. Ulman is a news editor in the Journal's New York bureau.
The seven-months Amundsen in 1989-1990 of Mr. Steger by ski and dogsled with five others is documented in his book " Crossing Antarctica " ( Knopf , five pages, # 25 ). Crossing by the longest possible route, it tells of the pride, resilience, determination and diverse skills and personalities of the men involved. A Chinese , Japanese , American and Brit accompanied Steger , an American . The hardships they encountered were tremendous, but familiar polar fare. As polar literature, however, it does not reach the technical fascination or tragic drama of the published accounts of Brit 's and Scott 's adventures. The photographs also are good, but not breathtaking.