Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
161
Figure 5.15. Supporting
Party Mountain as seen
from the south (see Figs.
5.6, 6.2). Both Gould's and
Blackburn's parties camped
in the valley between the
two dark ridges at the
right edge of the image.
The west (right) side of the
mountain has two ridge-
lines overlapping in this
perspective. The ascent
route up the ridge to the
rear is marked, but the
upper reaches of the route
are out of sight behind the
summit spotted by the dot.
The prominent massif on
the horizon to the left of
Supporting Party Mountain
is Mount Griffith, forty-five
miles distant across Scott
Glacier. To its left with face
in partial sun is Mount
Vaughan.
Freddy Crockett drew the short straw, so while he tended the dogs, Gould and the others
climbed a side spur to where it joined the high point on the ridge crest.
To the southeast the mountains were compressed to a single cliV face dropping three
thousand feet from the ice cap to a terrace thirty miles across, studded with ridges and
peaks in low relief. The horizontal top of the escarpment, bare of any sedimentary layers,
appeared to descend toward the horizon in the east. The ancient erosion surface embed-
ded in the faces of Mount Fridtjof Nansen and many peaks beyond was here exhumed, a
plain once more (Fig. 5.16). In its former existence it had been a lowlands cut and drained
by swift rivers. Reincarnated now, the plain had an edge of cliV backed by a fringe of ice
thickening toward the south.
To the south and branching to the west was a stately range culminating in a pair of
faceted peaks (Fig. 5.17). Byrd later named the twin summits Mount Gould. In front of
the escarpment running west-northwesterly was a broad glacier that Gould named the
Leverett, in honor of Frank Leverett, a Quaternary geologist with the U.S. Geological
Survey who had inspired Gould's interest in glacial geology when teaching the under-
graduate in a course at the University of Michigan. Although a view of its headreaches
was blocked by a ridge in the middle ground, it appeared that the glacier might extend
many miles to the east, causing Gould to speculate that Leverett Glacier could be longer
than either the Amundsen or Scott, and could perhaps contribute a volume of ice to the
ice shelf second only to the Beardmore.
At the top of Supporting Party Mountain the men built a cairn and left the following
note:
