Across Antarctica With Humor and Hope : CROSSING ANTARCTICA, <i> by Will Steger and Jon Bowermaster,</i> Alfred A. Knopf $25; 320 pages

True adventure just isn’t what it used to be.

Nowadays, as we discover in “Crossing Antarctica” by eco-adventurer Will Steger and his co-author, Jon Bowermaster, the reach of civilization and the power of technology have blunted many of the perils of the wilderness.

In 1912, for example, a party of British polar explorers led by Robert Falcon Scott--after losing the race to reach the South Pole to a Norwegian expedition under Roald Amundsen--lost their lives to hunger and cold within 12 miles of a cache of food and fuel.

By contrast, when Steger captained an international team of scientists and outdoorsmen on a 4,000-mile trek by dog sled across the remote stretches of Antarctica, he enjoyed the comfort of abundant provisions, sophisticated communications technology and the reassuring prospect of resupply and rescue by air.

For Scott and Amundsen, “it was impossible to be rescued,” one expedition member points out, almost glumly.

The goal of the International Antarctica Expedition, as Steger repeatedly states, was not merely to achieve a “personal best” but to make a point about the fragile beauty of Antarctica and the importance of international cooperation in preserving its vast mineral wealth from corporate and governmental predators.

To help make the point, the expedition was a model of multiculturalism and geo-political balance: America, England, China, Japan and what was until recently called the Soviet Union were all represented on the team.

The expedition was provisioned with vast quantities of name-brand supplies, everything from 1,250 pounds of Land O’Lakes Butter to more than 2,000 cups of Swiss Miss hot chocolate. They fixed their positions by satellite, they listened to Dire Straits on a Walkman. Their path through the icy wastes was marked by a series of supply caches that had been airlifted into place.

Still, the dog sled run across Antarctica was not merely a stunt, and Steger can be forgiven for hyping the dangers faced by his expedition: “Antarctica has taught us one thing: never trust it,” he writes. “A majestic sunset lulls us into thinking it is our friend; the following morning violent winds are back, reminding us of our fragility, reminding us that Antarctica could take our lives in a second.”

But all of the weighty trappings of the expedition, both ideological and material, tend to mask the hazards of the self-imposed wilderness ordeal. And Steger admits that he was frustrated by the abundance of lifelines and safety nets; early on, when the expedition was unable to find one of the supply caches under the heavy snowfall, Steger secretly welcomed the mishap.

“I think we needed to test ourselves a little,” he confides to the reader. “The most rewarding adventures are the ones that force you to improvise.”

But Steger convinces us that the ordeal was rugged enough: The treksters endured temperatures as low as 100 below zero, prevailing winds of 80 m.p.h. and, most treacherous of all, the constant threat of near-invisible crevasses that can easily swallow up dogs, sleds and men alike. Even the most elaborate precautions were sometimes insufficient protection.

“Over the years I learned perhaps the most important lesson any adventurer can: that in order to survive nature’s harshest lessons, you must recognize and give in to its power,” he writes. “Failure in these conditions--which generally means death--is most often a result of being overconfident.”

Steger is convincing, too, when he summons up the spirit of adventure and comradeship that drove him and his companions across an empty and forbidding continent--a hundred days without a sunset, a hundred nights spent in frail tents staked on the storm-beaten polar ice, moments of terror when a expedition member goes missing in a storm, moments of loss when a beloved sled dog falters and dies, and the many signs and wonders in the frozen wilderness: “sun halos” and “sun pillars” and a sky full of “diamond dust.”

Steger’s sense of humor is in good working order, too. For example, he’s an experienced dog-sledder, but he describes his dog-handling technique with a degree of candor that will reassure even the most inelegant suburban dog owner: “ ‘Whoa, dogs. Whoa, dogs. Stop. Whoa. Sit. Sit, goddamnit. Stop. Stop,” he confesses, “usually gets the required results.’ ”

The expedition may have been a bit contrived, but “Crossing Antarctica” ultimately persuades us that the trek was a perfectly worthy enterprise, and the book itself is an agreeable and rewarding dose of armchair adventure. It’s hardly a classic of the genre, but I was glad to go along for the ride.

Next: Richard Eder reviews “The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Diana Cooper,” edited by Artemis Cooper (Ticknor & Fields).