Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
118
ance of steam from an active cone. It would be very interesting to find an active volcano
so far south. After taking bearings of the trend of the mountains, Barrier and glacier, we
ate our frugal lunch and wished for more, and then descended.”
The descent began at 4:00 P.M. Following back the trail they had pieced together
through the crevasses, the party reached camp three hours later. Shackleton was again
snow-blind because he had taken oV his goggles early in the day in the crevasses and
hadn't put them back on. Time and rations were short, but Shackleton could calculate
success in reaching the pole if the glacier surface was kind and the weather held. The
course was set. A gateway to the glacier had been spotted the day before from the summit
of Mount Hope, a narrow path of white that cut behind the mountain where the party
could avoid the pressured zone at the mouth of the glacier.
They were oV by 8:00 A.M., with Shackleton, Marshall, and Adams pulling one
sledge and Wild tending Socks with the other. In the event that the man-haulers found a
crevasse, they would be able to warn the driver with the pony. It took until well into the
afternoon negotiating crevasses before the party reached the foot of the snow slope that
they planned to take across to the glacier. This proved to be much longer and steeper than
they had judged from the summit, but by 5:00 P.M. they had reached the pass. Shackle-
ton described his impressions of that moment: “The pass through which we have come
is flanked by great granite pillars at least 2000 ft. in height and making a magnificent
entrance to the 'Highway to the South' [Figs. 4.11, 4.12]. It is all so interesting and ev-
erything is on such a vast scale that one cannot describe it well. We four are seeing these
great designs and the play of nature in her grandest moods for the first time, and possibly
they may never be seen by man again.” Shackleton could not have imagined the Interna-
tional Geophysical Year fifty years later.
From its camp a little south of the pass, the party moved farther south on December
5. Almost as soon as the men reached the glacier they were enmeshed in a thicket of small
crevasses in blue ice. The main danger was that Socks would stumble in one of these nar-
row slots and break his leg, so the three men shuttled the two sledges for much of the
time while Wild carefully led Socks through the maze. When a large swell of pressured
blue ice rose up, the party found passage at the snow-patched margin of the glacier next to
a set of towering granite pillars, where they camped for the night. At this site they made
a depot (Lower Glacier Depot or Depot D), leaving food enough for six days.
The following day the party crossed another half-mile of crevassed blue ice, with the
trio shuttling the sledges and Wild bring up Socks, but from there on they traveled along
the snowy margin of the glacier with a pressure swell to the left and retreating valleys
to the east. The routine returned to the three man-haulers spotting crevasses and Wild
and the pony following close behind. The next day the routine was the same. Crevasses
appeared along the passage, trending in from either side, but they were avoided without
problem.
Then shortly after the lunch camp, disaster struck. Socks broke through a crevasse
bridge that the man-hauling team had unknowingly crossed. The sledge lurched forward,
buckled down into the crevasse, but held. Wild was jerked forward into the crevasse by
the lead line before catching himself with his left arm on the far side. The others quickly
pulled him out and stabilized the sledge. Fortunately for the survival of the party, Socks's
