NAMES IN THE NEWS : Antarctica Exit Proves Risky
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ST. PAUL, Minn. — Will Steger and five fellow adventurers who completed a seven-month, 3,800-mile trek across Antarctica on skis and dog sleds said they had a hair-raising time getting off the frozen continent.
Lifeboats carrying the team to a waiting Soviet ship at Mirnyy on the Indian Ocean coast of Antarctica had to dodge ice floes when an iceberg split apart Thursday.
“The most dangerous part of the expedition was getting here and getting out,” Steger said from Mirnyy. “Thank God we didn’t lose anyone.”
The six men, 29 sled dogs, two dog handlers and 13 journalists were loaded by ropes down a steep, icy embankment into the lifeboats. For the mushers, it was their first time off the ice since arriving by Soviet airplane at King George Island on the continent’s western tip last July.
Steger, who is from the Minnesota town of Ely, was a co-leader of the St. Paul-based expedition.
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