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After discussion we decided to camp, and here we are, after a very short supper and one meal only remaining in the food bag; the depot doubtful in locality. We must get there to-morrow. Meanwhile we are cheerful with an effort. It's a tight place, but luckily we've been well fed up to the present. Pray God we have fine weather to-morrow. Tuesday, February 13. Camp R. 27, beside Cloudmaker.
After December 17 our marches worked up from 13 to 23 miles a day. Shackleton bestowed the name of Queen Alexandra Range on the huge mountains to the westward of the Beardmore. The most conspicuous is the "Cloudmaker," which he gives as 9.971 I like the 1 foot when heights are so hard to determine hereabouts!
Our height is now about 1,500 feet; I had pinned my faith on getting better conditions as we rose, but it looks as though matters were getting worse instead of better. As far as the Cloudmaker the valley looks like a huge basin for the lodgement of such snow as this. We can but toil on, but it is woefully disheartening. I am not at all hungry, but pretty thirsty.
The Cloudmaker appears to be diorite; Mt. Buckley sedimentary. The suggested formation is of several layers of coal with sandstone above and below; interesting to find if it is so and investigate coal. Wood fossil conifer appears to have come from this better to get leaves wrap fossils up for protection. Mt. Dawson described as pinkish limestone, with a wedge of dark rock; this very doubtful!
The Beardmore temperatures to begin with were rather high, and Scott seems to have considered this a disadvantage, for he says it made the party feel slack. Evans was rested half-way down the Beardmore, Oates looking after him, while the other made a halt for geological investigation by the Cloudmaker depot.
Their ski shoes, too, are out of trim. During the morning of the 12th they steered for the Commonwealth Range until they reached about the middle of the glacier and then the course was altered for the 'Cloudmaker, and afterwards still further to the west.
Temp. -10°. Last night we all slept well in spite of our grave anxieties. For my part these were increased by my visits outside the tent, when I saw the sky gradually closing over and snow beginning to fall. By our ordinary time for getting up it was dense all around us. We could see nothing, and we could only remain in our sleeping-bags. At 8.30 I dimly made out the land of the Cloudmaker.
At their ordinary hour for getting up the weather was so thick that they had to remain in their sleeping-bags; but presently the weather cleared enough for Scott dimly to see the land of the Cloudmaker.
The sledges get bogged every now and again, sinking to the crossbars. Needless to say, the hauling is terrible when this occurs. We steered for the Commonwealth Range during the forenoon till we reached about the middle of the glacier. This showed that the unnamed glacier to the S.W. raised great pressure. Observing this, I altered course for the 'Cloudmaker' and later still farther to the west.
The crust, brittle, held for a pace or two, then let one down with a bump some 8 or 10 inches. Now and again one's leg went down a crack in the hard ice underneath. We drew up a slope on this surface and discovered a long icefall extending right across our track, I presume the same pressure which caused Shackleton to turn towards the Cloudmaker.
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