Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
Their loads run up to 800 and 900 lbs. and they make very light of them. Oates said he could have gone on for some time to-night. Saturday, January 28. Camp 2. The ponies went back for the last load at Camp 1, and I walked south to find a way round the great pressure ridge. The sea ice south is covered with confused irregular sastrugi well remembered from Discovery days. The pressure ridge is new.
A southerly wind made possible the use of the sail, and the trouble was to prevent the sledge bounding ahead over rough sastrugi and capsizing. The handling of ropes and the sail caused many frost-bites, and occasionally the men were dragged along the surface by the sledge. The remaining dog collapsed during the afternoon and had to be left behind.
The surface bad, horribly bad on new sastrugi, and decidedly rising again in elevation. We are going to have a pretty hard time this next 100 miles I expect. If it was difficult to drag downhill over this belt, it will probably be a good deal more difficult to drag up.
But on the next afternoon, they managed to reach the Half Degree Depôt, and left with 9-1/2 days' provision to carry them the next 89 miles. 'There is not a sign of our tracks between these cairns, but the last, marking our night camp of the 6th, No. 59, is in the belt of hard sastrugi, and I was comforted to see signs of the track reappearing as we camped.
Very curious surface soft recent sastrugi which sink underfoot, and between, a sort of flaky crust with large crystals beneath. Tuesday, February 28. Lunch. Thermometer went below -40° last night; it was desperately cold for us, but we had a fair night. I decided to slightly increase food; the effect is undoubtedly good. Started marching in -32° with a slight north-westerly breeze blighting.
During the next day, January 7, they had good cause to think that the vicissitudes of their work were bewildering. On account of the sastrugi the ski were left at Camp 59, but they had only marched a mile from it when the sastrugi disappeared. 'I kept debating the ski question and at this point stopped, and after discussion we went back and fetched the ski; it cost us 1-1/2 hours nearly.
There are few sastrugi and little deep snow. For the most part men and ponies sink to a hard crust some 3 or 4 inches beneath the soft upper snow. Tiring for the men, but in itself more even, and therefore less tiring for the animals. Meares just come up and reporting very bad surface. We shall start 1 hour later to-morrow, i.e. at 4 A.M., making 5 hours' delay on the conditions of three days ago.
One says "All right, Bowers, go ahead," and Birdie leads his big animal forward, starting, as he continues, at a steady pace. The horses have got cold and at the word they are off, the Soldier's and one or two others with a rush. Finnesko give poor foothold on the slippery sastrugi, and for a minute or two drivers have some difficulty in maintaining the pace on their feet.
We find this colour very grateful to the eyes, and as a rule it is possible to see everything through them even more clearly than with naked vision. The hard sastrugi are now all from the W.S.W. and our cairns are drifted up by winds from that direction; mostly, though, there has evidently been a range of snow-bearing winds round to south.
The breeze fell altogether latterly, and I shifted up into my old place, a middle number of the five. Our distance completed was 5.52 miles when camp was made again. Our old cairns are of great assistance, also the tracks, which are obliterated in places by heavy drift and hard sastrugi, but can be followed easily. "January 22. We came across Evans's sheep-skin boots this evening.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking