On 28th December 2002, 27-year-old Tom Avery became the youngest - and fastest - Briton to reach the South Pole. Written in diary form, this chronicle of modern polar expedition retains as much of the drama and emotion that Tom and his three other team members experienced en route: the team's use of mini-parachutes that powered them across the ice; the breaking of no less than 17 ski-bindings on the journey; the privations of frostbite, altitude sickness and crevasse falls...

Tom Avery incorporates comparisons with other South Pole expeditions into his own, and the sense of other histories (Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton, etc) makes this an informative as well as a gripping tale of polar exploration.