Riding the Ice Wind: By Kite and Sledge across Antarctica Review

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(More customer reviews)Oh dear.
I don't care for the sentimental maundering, but at least the author presents his own first-hand experiences with candor. He loses his way as soon as he departs from his own trip: misquoting and getting his facts wrong about some of the historical expeditions, and exposing his ignorance of the modern Antarctic scientific mission when he writes about Amundsen Scott South Pole Station. No, there is not a 25-to-1 support staff to scientist ratio (he based his math on the members of 1 science group, IceCube; all other scientists may be surprised to be demoted). He knows nothing about the nature of the endeavor going on inside, but he is quite happy to pontificate on the American presence based on the appearance of the front door. Apparently he is unfamiliar with the movement of the ice cap that has drawn the station closer to the geographic pole over the course of several decades (he prefers to blame pushy Americans for its proximity, that's more convenient). I wonder if he knows that he photographed and wrote about reaching the ceremonial pole marker, rather than the geographic one (re-surveyed every year due to that sneaky ice cap movement). He clearly doesn't know or care about the history of IGY and the original South Pole Station. He admires the quaint and atmospheric old Dome, whose power plant coated everything in the vicinity with soot; and disdains the (not so pretty) new station, with its much cleaner co-generators that combine heat and electricity production with pretty decent efficiency and low by-product.
I respect the achievement of sledging across the continent. The author should do his homework before he insults the achievements of others. I am proud that I have been able to be part of the international scientific mission at the South Pole, under an arguably fragile treaty that preserves the continent for discovery and peace rather than commercial development and resource exploitation. This author needs a stern editor, and a fact checker.
The author and I agree in our admiration for Apsley Cherry-Garrard, whose classic "The Worst Journey in the World" is readily available in many editions easily obtained online or even from a library.


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Leaving the security of friends, work, and a wife, Alastair Vere Nicoll joined a team of young men to harness the katabatic winds and haul and kite-surf across Antarctica: the coldest, windiest, most violent continent on earth. Not since Shackleton nearly perished attempting the same thing in his Endurance expedition had such a crossing been attempted. This is the story not only of the first West-to-East traverse of the continent of Antarctica, but of the crossing of two phases in the author’s life—from youth into manhood, fantasy into reality. It is also the story of a race against time, as he fought to get home for the birth of his first child. As Alastair battled through the freezing wastes, exploring the earth’s wildest continent and his deepest self, he was haunted by the ghosts of past explorers and by the question of what it is to be a "modern man.”

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