Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
181
Figure 6.5. The Gothic Mountains encircle Sanctuary Glacier (compare with Fig. 6.15). The western
face of Grizzly Peak dominates the foreground. To the immediate left, the summit of Mount Zanuck
is blanketed in cloud. The two bright peaks at the back are Mount Andrews and Mount Gerdel. Pic-
tured end on, the Organ Pipe Peaks complete the right side of the amphitheater. The men of Black-
burn's party looked longingly into this basin on their outward journey, and then camped right in the
middle of it on their return. Watson Escarpment peeks from behind clouds at the rear of the image.
luxury it would have been to digress into this sanctuary of granite, to spend a day and
watch the sun go round, illuminating each face in turn. Perhaps on the return, if all went
well. But now Scott Glacier needed climbing.
With the vantage gained by another fourteen miles of travel, Blackburn could see
from the camp at the foot of Mount Harkness that south of the Hays Mountains the up-
lands continued as an escarpment with a rolling, level top. But what riveted his attention
most through the binoculars were the horizontal layers that held up the upper portion
of the wall. There were the sedimentary rocks that Gould had found to the northwest,
much closer to the ice shelf there. It looked as though these beds maintained their eleva-
tion farther south, while Scott Glacier climbed ever higher toward the ice plateau. Some-
where beyond his sight these two broad planes must intersect, and that would be the
place Blackburn would stop.
