Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
180
Figure 6.4. Bare rock and
ice adorn the crown of the
Hays Mountains. All of the
rock is granite, except for
the tip of the summit of
Mount Astor, the highest
peak at the center, where
a tiny remnant of Beacon
sandstone caps an old ero-
sion surface on the granite.
The first peak to the left
of Mount Astor is Mount
Crockett, followed by the
faceted buttress of Hei-
nous Peak. The summit at
the right horizon is Mount
Vaughan. The summits
between Mount Vaughan
and Mount Astor are still
unnamed.
Directly south of Mount Hamilton a striking granite massif with three buttressed
summits stood out boldly. The mountain, rising nearly six thousand feet above the glacier
at its base, contained a terrace about midway up where several hanging glaciers of blue ice
issued from small cirques (see Fig. 6.1). Talus (a cone of rocks fallen from higher slopes)
mantled most of the lower slopes, but the upper parts were bare and jointed crags. In his
field log Blackburn simply called it Granite Mountain. The central peak was later named
Mount Zanuck, after Darryl F. Zanuck, tycoon of Twentieth Century-Fox, who helped
Byrd with the motion picture record of the trip.
Traversing the blue ice between Mounts Hamilton and Zanuck, the party crossed the
mouth of Albanus Glacier. Because of the perspective, it appeared to the party that this
glacier headed in a circular amphitheater connecting Mount Gould and Mount Zanuck,
when in fact the glacier originates another fifteen miles to the east at the foot of the Wat-
son Escarpment (see Fig. 6.2). Carried downstream in a broad arc between large pressure
ridges, a wide medial moraine of granite boulders marked the confluence of Albanus and
Scott Glaciers. Blackburn speculated that the Albanus was moving faster than the Scott,
for the latter contained a broad depression immediately upstream of the confluence. The
next night's camp was near this moraine at the foot of Mount Zanuck. After dinner the
party laid out a grid of flags for surveying on their return to see whether any glacial move-
ment was detectable.
The following day as the party broke camp, the temperature was a warm 21° F, but
the wind blew at an annoying twelve to fifteen knots. The first several miles were over
blue ice with hardly a crevasse, but soon the party reached snow cover, which prevailed
for the rest of the day. Past the end of the Mount Zanuck massif the men gazed up into
a true amphitheater, a field of pure white barely textured with sastrugi that rose steadily
to a circle of jagged turrets, bathed in rich tones of brown and ochre (Fig. 6.5). What a
