Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
135
cons across the trail, six feet high, each with a numbered piece of paper indicating posi-
tion. In all 150 beacons were erected from nine thousand cut blocks of snow. Amundsen
defends his “prudence” by saying that one cannot be too careful on featureless ice fields;
the project also gave the dogs a rest that kept them running at a fast pace. In fact, the
party was making such good time that Amundsen was unconcerned about the time taken
up in beacon construction. The system of beacons proved itself worthy soon enough,
when the party approached the 82° S depot. In the preceding several days, foggy weather
had allowed the party to veer oV course, but when a flag on a pole loomed in the haze, the
men knew that they were three and a half miles to the west of the depot, and they easily
followed the line of flags to it.
On the morning of November 8, the party sighted land, a thin line of summits across
their path, “lofty and clear in the morning sun.” On the first sledging trip onto the Bar-
rier the season before, the men had joked about the possibility that the Barrier simply
went on to the pole, a smooth, rising field of white merging ice shelf and plateau. It was
the end run idea that Scott had held to for a while. Shackleton had seen the mountains
dissolve out there somewhere around longitude 180° and south of latitude 84°, but one
could still imagine the mountains petering out not far beyond that sighting. There had
been a lot of speculation on that first run the previous year.
The realistic expectation was that the mountains continued in a southeasterly direc-
tion from Shackleton's farthest sighting. If one could project correctly, the mountain
front would be more than one hundred miles south of the mouth of the Beardmore Gla-
cier where it crossed 164° W, the meridian Amundsen was tracking. That morning con-
firmed the expectation that the mountains continued. But continued to where? Would
Amundsen's party finally view their termination, or would more mountains materialize
from the haze at the southeast horizon?
By the evening of November 8, the party had reached 83° S, where their next depot
was laid. Degrees of latitude were slipping by at a rate of one every three days. As they
drew closer to the mountains, the features loomed with ever more detail. Straight ahead
was a high, blocky massif, freestanding and bold, with bare rock faces faceted across
its upper slopes. In honor of his mentor, Amundsen named it Mount Fridtjof Nansen
(Fig. 5.2). Immediately to the left (east), beyond a cleft in the skyline, rose another massif
perhaps three thousand feet lower in elevation and almost wholly snow clad. He named it
Mount Don Pedro Christophersen in honor of a patron living in Buenos Aires who had
helped substantially with both provisions and monetary contributions. Farther to the
left, more blocky ramparts appeared to be separated by other clefts. OV to the right a long
outlet glacier with a gentle meander partway up its length appeared to reach directly to
the plateau, but the Norwegians were banking on a shorter crossing through one of the
clefts, so they did not deviate from their due-south course.
On November 12 the party reached 84° S, where they laid their next depot. Amund-
sen records, “On that day we made the interesting discovery of a chain of mountains run-
ning to the east; this, as it appeared from the spot where we were, formed a semicircle,
where it joined the mountains of South Victoria Land.” In other words, the mountains
that trended in from the northwest from the Beardmore Glacier area turned in a long arc
and ran oV to the east.
