The Crossing of Antarctica: The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1955-1958

By: Vivian Fuchs and Edmund Hillary

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Synopsis: This illustrated book tells the full story of the Commonwealth Transantarctic Expedition, completed when the two groups, who traveled the last 700 miles together, reached Scott Base 99 days later--just one day under the crucial time limit set by Fuchs. Beginning with the landing of the advance party in November 1955 to establish a base on the Weddell Sea, when, like Shackleton before him, Fuchs found his ship trapped by ice, it tells the story of the two years of preparation and reconnaissance that led up to the final attempt. It tells how Hillary and his party explored the immense Skelton Glacier from the Ross Sea and blazed a trail for the crossing party to follow after they had reached the Pole. To Hillary goes the achievement of reaching the South Pole by land for the first time since Captain Scott planted the British flag there. It includes the daring crossing by air in a single-engined airplane and the subsidiary expeditions made, during the crossing, into the mountain ranges that rear above the surface of the ice. It recounts also the scientific discoveries that were the primary purpose of the expedition. Above all, The Crossing of Antarctica is a thrilling story of men who set out into the loneliness of the unknown to discover, with “faith and science,” what lay on and below a hidden continent.