Little America
Page 46
On our homeward trip we decided to travel at night, both in order to have the sun behind us and because the sledging and skiing would generally be better than in the day. We had no relish for recrossing the crevasses in front of Liv’s Glacier, so we laid our course northeast from Strom Camp hoping to avoid them and to pick up our trail later when we were all out into the solid Barrier again. For several days clouds had hung over the Barrier and mountains, but as if for a good omen they lifted just as we were ready to leave Strom Camp at one o’clock on the morning of the 30th.
Could you who read this have seen the picture that greeted us then, you would know that there had been much beside our geology and cartography to make the summer fascinating. To the south of us lay Mt. Nansen in all his splendor, his cap of shining ice, his blackish shoulders of bare rock loosely wrapped in a ragged old shawl, and the whole made glorious by the touch of the long skeletal fingers of the early morning sun.
This grand old mountain had somehow come to hold the first place in our affections, and this sight was just what we would all have wished to keep as our last intimate view of the mountains. We finally turned our backs and headed northward toward Little America and home.
Quite as we had planned we did miss the worst part of the crevassed area we had crossed when we had arrived at the mountains, and on the second day of travel we picked up our old trail. How much more easily we travelled along now than when southward bound. We had become much more adept on skis and the dogs were fairly lightly loaded.
Two things furnished the principal variety on the homeward trip until we were again in the crevassed region between latitudes 81 and 82. These were the weather and the character of the Barrier surface as it affected sleding and skiing. For January 3rd I find the following entry in my log:
“Now the morning sun is out and the sky is gorgeous with a great variety of ethereal cirri, and there is a bit of wind from the southeast. It has been overcast and foggy the whole night and most of the morning. In fact late in the morning there was a light fall of fluffy snow as though ‘the angels were moulting!’ We had to keep close together to keep each other in sight, and even then it frequently happened that we with the front sledge could not see the last sledge behind us. I had to watch the compass fairly closely and call directions to Mike occasionally in order to keep on the course. And I don’t believe we missed a single flag that we had previously placed to mark our trail. The thorough marking of the trail on our southbound trip was a good idea, and is already repaying us for the time we spent in doing the work.
“We came by depot no. 6 shortly after noon and stopped only long enough to take on some dog pemmican and some man food.”
And on the 4th the following: “Much hardest day we have had since leaving the mountains. Weak crust on the snow broke through under the dogs who plodded and waddled heavily along hauling sledges that went crushing their way through the snow rather than gliding over it easily. The dogs are already quiet. There will be no fighting amongst them tonight for they are very tired. A thin streak of clear sky to the south about midnight gave us one last glimpse of the snow capped mountains which are now far behind and which none of us will likely ever see again.”
We didn’t need to worry about the weather until we reached the crevassed region. On January I oth the sky was overcast and things were pretty completely hidden from our view by a light fog. And we were nearing the broken area. I carefully watched the sledge meter and at what I thought was the proper time I said, “We’ll camp here.” We had the usual experience that we had encountered before in areas where there is active deformation of the ice.
There was an almost constant fusilade as of rifle shots about and under us as the ice cracked under its tension. But in the middle of the night after the dogs and camp had been quiet for several hours I woke up and lay awake for a long time without hearing a sound. But when we got up in the morning and began moving about, the noises began all over again. Even though the Barrier is here some hundreds of feet thick, it appears that where we camped it was under such a delicate state of stress that our movements disturbed the equilibrium. When the clouds lifted we found that we had accidentally camped just between two goodly sized crevasses, either one of which we might easily have fallen into without skis.
We had to abandon our former trail through the crevasses on account of the roofs of old ones on the former trail having fallen in and new ones having formed. We travelled three miles and had to stop on account of heavy fog. We waited two days for it to clear but it lightened only partially. Our dog food was getting so low that we could not stay longer without killing some dogs. We didn’t want to do that, so Norman, Mike, and I roped and started out on skis in an attempt to find a route we could follow out with safety. This we were able to do and hurriedly retracing our steps we broke camp and headed out. The next day we picked up our old trail just south of depot no. 3 as we had planned to do.
The rest of the homeward journey was uneventful. On the 19th, in the early morning, we saw the tops of the radio towers at Little America. Only then did we have the feeling that we were nearly home—home from a sledge trip on which together with our many side trips we had covered more than 1500 miles. Glad as we were to be back in the comparative luxury of Little America, it was with a feeling akin to the forlorn that we looked back at our sledge tracks disappearing into the limitless white to the south. We had had a good time and had, in some measure, known the joy of achievement.
APPENDIX
WINTER PARTY—LITTLE AMERICA
C. D. Alexander
Bernt Balchen
George H. Black
Quin A. Blackburn
Christoffer Braathen
Kennard F. Bubier
Jacob Bursey
Richard E. Byrd
Arnold H. Clark
Francis D. Coman
Frederick E. Crockett
Victor H. Czegka
Frank T. Davies
Joe de Ganahl
E. J. Demas
James A. Feury
Edward E. Goodale
Charles F. Gould
Laurence M. Gould
William C. Haines
Malcolm P. Hanson
Henry T. Harrison, Jr.
Harold I. June
Charles E. Lofgren
Howard F. Mason
Ashley C. McKinley
Thomas B. Mulroy
John S. O’Brien
Russell Owen
Alton N. Parker
Carl O. Petersen
Martin Ronne
Benjamin Roth
Joseph T. Rucker
Paul A. Siple
Dean C. Smith
Sverre Strom
George W. Tennant
George A. Thorne, Jr.
Willard Vander Veer
Norman D. Vaughan
Arthur T. Walden
OFFICERS AND CREW Eleanor Bolling, VOYAGE BAY OF WHALES—DUNEDIN, N. Z., FEBRUARY 1929.
Captain Gustav L. Brown, Master
Charles J. McGuinness, 1st Mate
Harry R. King, 2nd Mate
Frank McPherson, Chief Engineer
John Cody, 1st Assistant Engineer
Elbert J. Thawley, 2nd Assistant Engineer
Haldor Barnes, Medical Officer
Lloyd K. Grenlie, Radio Engineer
H. N. Shrimpton, Radio Operator
Leland L. Barter
John Buys
Ben Denson
Carroll B. Foster, Jr.
Frank Fritzson
Charles L. Kessler
John Olsen
A. Walker Perkins
R. Perks
George Sjogren
Lyle Womack
OFFICERS AND CREW, City of New York, VOYAGE BAY OF WHALES—DUNEDIN, N. z., FEBRUARY 22, 1929.
Captain Frederick C. Melville, Master
Bendik Johansen, Ice Pilot (also 2d mate)
*Harry Adams, 1st Mate
S. D. I. Erickson, 3d Mate
Ralph F. Shr
opshire, Hydrographer
Esmonde M. O’Brien, Chief Engineer
John J. Bayer, 1st Assistant Engineer
John L. Sutton, 2d Assistant Engineer
Lloyd, V. Berkner, Radio Engineer
Arthur Berlin
Max E. Boehning
Arthur B. Creagh
William Gavronski
Sydney Greason
John Jacobson
Richard W. Kanter
Louis Reichart
S. Edward Roos
Vaclav Vojtech
Percy J. Wallis
OFFICERS AND CREW Eleanor Bolling ON LAST VOYAGE, DUNEDIN, N. Z.—NORTHERN EDGE OF ICE PACK, FEBRUARY 1930.
Captain Gustav L. Brown, Master
Charles J. McGuinness, 1st Mate
Harry Adams, 2d Mate
Frank McPherson, Chief Engineer
Elbert J. Thawley, 1st Assistant Engineer
Leland L. Barter, 2d Assistant Engineer
*Haldor Barnes, Medical Officer
Lloyd K. Grenlie, Radio Engineer
G. Samson, Radio Operator
H. Austin
D. Blair
John Buys
M. W. Dobson
Carroll B. Foster, Jr.
William Gavronski
W. Harvey
J. Jones
Charles L. Kessler
N. Newbold
Frank Paape
A. Walker Perkins
R. Perks
Louis Reichart
OFFICERS AND CREW, City of New York, VOYAGE DUNEDIN, N. Z.—BAY OF WHALES, ARRIVING FEBRUARY 18, 1930, TO EMBARK WINTER PARTY.
Captain Frederick C. Melville, Master
Bendik Johansen, Ice Pilot and 1st Mate
S. D. I. Erickson, 2d Mate
A. B. Robinson, 3d Mate
Esmonde M. O’Brien, Chief Engineer
John J. Bayer, 1st Assistant Engineer
John L. Sutton, 2d Assistant Engineer
Hilton L. Willcox, Medical Officer
Ralph F. Shropshire, Hydrographer
Lloyd V. Berkner, Radio Engineer
J. R. Orbell, Radio Operator
W. J. Armstrong
Arthur Berlin
John R. Bird
A. C. Brustad
Arthur B. Creagh
R. Eva
W. Gribben
Richard W. Konter
Walter Leuthner
F. Lockwood
J. Robinson
S. Edward Roos
Alan Innes Taylor
Vaclav Vojtech
Percy Wallis
M. C. Woolhouse
R. Young
Footnotes
* Relieved Sverre Strom as 1st Mate, who stayed at Little America as a member of the Winter Party.
* Services of medical officer loaned to S. S. Kosmos, as doctor had been lost in an airplane used by that vessel in connection with whaling operations. Dr. Barnes joined the Kosmos via the City of New York.