World : 1st Women Reach S. Pole Overland

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile —  Two Americans became the first women to reach the South Pole overland when they arrived with nine other adventurers Tuesday night after a 51-day trek on skis, a spokesman for the expedition said today.

The women--Victoria Murden, 24, a Harvard University theology student from Cambridge, Mass., and 37-year-old businesswoman Shirley Metz of Capistrano Beach, Calif.--skied across 740 miles of the frozen continent. They were part of an international group that included three other Americans and an Indian army colonel who skied an average of 15 miles a day into winds of up to 60 m.p.h. and temperatures as low as minus 40 to reach the pole.