Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
141
loomed ahead with “nothing but crevasse after crevasse, so huge and ugly” that this step
was impassable. However, to the left the terrace seemed to rise gently toward Mount Don
Pedro Christophersen and to merge into its snowy lower slope. The men headed in that
direction but soon found themselves in a cul-de-sac of open chasms, so they camped.
While the dogs were being fed and bedded and the tent set up, Amundsen led a re-
connaissance sortie to the base of an ice ridge above the camp. The crux of the traverse
was a crevasse bridge no wider than a sledge that crossed a chasm of deep blue opening
on both sides. The men returned to camp for dinner and then went out again to see what
lay beyond the ridge. By keeping in close under Mount Don Pedro Christophersen, they
found the passage above the ice ridge to be smooth, except for a few large, open crevasses
that were easily avoided. Before long they were sure that they had passed the chaotic part
of the glacier and that only one final ice rise stood between them and the plateau. The
best route over the rise was uncertain, so the men pushed on across the terrace, scouting
the passes between the large beehive-shaped summits at the head of the Axel Heiberg
catchment. The least steep ascent appeared to be to the north between Mount Fridtjof
Nansen and Mount Ole Engelstad.
With confidence that they would be on the plateau the following day, the three men
skied back to camp. As they came out on a rise and looked down at their tent, Amundsen
reflected on his being in this daunting reach:
The wildness of the landscape seen from this point is not to be described; chasm af-
ter chasm, crevasse after crevasse, with great blocks of ice scattered promiscuously
about, gave the impression that here Nature was too powerful for us. Here no prog-
ress was to be thought of.
It was not without a certain satisfaction that we stood there and contemplated
the scene. The little dark speck down there—our tent—in the midst of this chaos,
gave us a feeling of strength and power. We knew in our hearts that the ground
would have to be ugly indeed if we were not to manoeuvre our way across it and find
a place for that little home of ours.
During the night avalanches rumbled down from the upper slopes of both Mount
Fridtjof Nansen and Mount Don Pedro Christophersen. On the morning of November
20, the weather was still and clear. The pull up to the next terrace was strenuous, but the
dogs managed to do it with single teams. Once up, the party aimed straight for the north-
ern foot of Mount Ole Engelstad. As they rounded it, the plateau opened before them
beyond a final steep rise. In a switch from the rigid lunch routine of dry biscuits, Hanssen
broke out the primus and cooked up a pot of thin chocolate, while the men contemplated
what lay ahead. As if they knew this would be their last steep pull, the dogs dug in after
the lunch break and reached what appeared to be the plateau on the south side of Mount
Ole Engelstad. It was now time to turn south again. Directly ahead was a snowy ridge
that projected to the west from Mount Don Pedro Christophersen. As they ran up onto
it, the surface changed from the soft snow that had been with them since they reached the
mountains to hard, sharp-edged sastrugi trending northwest-southeast. When the grati-
fied party camped that night at 8:00 P.M., it was at 10,920 feet, having covered 19¼ miles
and risen 5,750 feet.
