At 9:40 a.m. on January 3, 1997, six men reached the summit of Rakekniven, a polar mountain that no one had ever climbed. Writer and adventurer Jon Krakauer joined the trek up “a towering blade of granite in a corner of East Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land” and recounts the ascent in the February 1998 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

Three members of the same team—photographer Gordon Wiltsie, filmmaker Rick Ridgeway, and climber Alex Lowe—tell their stories here.