by Tim Jarvis
The edge of the world: a near-vertical descent awaits us over the edge of a serac, high on Breakwind Ridge.
Courtesy of Paul Larsen
Ironically, Shackleton had found himself in a similar situation after an initial detour. Having turned to the northeast too early in the moonlight and lured on by what Worsley had initially described as an easy descent, he headed down an arm of the Fortuna that ended in a precipitous, hanging glacier front high above the sea. “We must turn back for a while,” announced the Boss, sounding as matter of fact about the disappointment as he could as they turned around and ascended the slope. A mile on they turned left to head south and follow the line of mountains that make up Breakwind Ridge, all the while looking for a way down. Worsley describes how they “were making for the only opening in a ridge of rocky mountains that lay athwart [their] course.” Most modern-day adventurers have interpreted this as the gap at the southern end of Breakwind Ridge, as we had done ourselves until now. However, on approaching from the west, as we were, the logical gap in Breakwind seemed to be this lower, rounded mountain and the pass next to it that lay ahead of us to the east, luring us on.
Shackleton’s Toothgap Ridge descent, according to Worsley, “was precipitous.” He continued: “It went off so far as we could tell into a sheer cliff but to the right it looked as though there was a possible descent.” With the help of the ship’s chronometer, they stopped a way into their descent, knowing the time approached 7 A.M., the hour when work would commence at Stromness whaling station. Sure enough, a whistle sounded as 7 o’clock arrived, calling the men to work. “Never did music sound so sweet to our ears as that whistle,” Shackleton commented. It was still a good distance away but manageable save for the dangerous descent they were committed to. For us the lure was the lush green of the valley floor 500 meters below, and then Stromness, but it was still a world away until we’d negotiated our formidable descent.
Shackleton’s team went down a dangerous slope, its steepness not becoming apparent until it was too late. Said Worsley: “A single slip from one of us would have meant the end of all three.” To get down, Shackleton cut steps with the adze initially and then “walked downhill,” lying flat on his back and smashing steps into the ice with the heels of his boots, which the other men then followed. They descended about 1,000 feet to the shore for what Worsley described as “fifteen minutes of splendid tramping over a level beach.” He then went on to describe coming “to the front of the great glacier which fortunately did not quite reach the sea, where we crossed long gravelly flats of the glacier almost like quicksands in which we sank half-way to our knees. The going was good for half a mile along the beach at the head of Fortuna Bay.” From our vantage point we could see that different terrain awaited us, with the ravages of climate change having withered the König Glacier so that now its snout was many kilometers from the beach. Our immediate challenge, however, was to descend Breakwind.
Baz surveying the scene ahead once he knows I have arrested my fall. I went from last in line straight past Larso, who took this shot seconds later.
Courtesy of Tim Jarvis
The parallels were striking between the two climbs down off Breakwind. Like Shackleton we assessed our options, deciding to commit to our descent, too tired to retrace our steps or try to find another way down. Plus we thought this route resembled very closely the path taken by Shackleton, referring as he does to being lowered down slopes as steep as a “church steeple” and cutting steps with the adze. We at least had more snow rather than sheer ice, allowing us to turn and face the seventy-degree slope, kicking steps as we went and leaning our faces into the wall to stop ourselves falling backward. Only when the steepness abated momentarily did we finally turn to face the incredible vista of Fortuna Bay.
Kicking steps in the snow with our heels and, for me, planting the adze was desperately hard work, and, although the snow was quite deep, the soles of my boots were slippery. Larso fared much better with his crampons and ax and Baz, like me, somehow managed in his awful boots, a testament to his superior climbing skills. As we descended, we would pause every twenty or thirty meters to catch our breath and for me to release the lactic acid in my arms from carrying the heavy adze. Each time we stopped, Baz would try to assess the way down as the slope was too steep for us to see the bottom or indeed see if there even was a way down.
About halfway through our ordeal, we realized we had descended into a chute that ended in a cliff that was too steep to descend any farther, forcing us to ascend twenty meters back up the steep snow slope and traverse across a ten-meter rock face. The drop was sheer as each of us skittered across, although despite the exposure, I actually felt more comfortable on the rock as I could at least wedge the points of my hobnails into the nooks and crannies to get purchase, something I couldn’t do on the slippery snow surface. We all knew that, as for Shackleton, a fall from here would likely have pulled us all down and over the edge of the cliff and meant the end of all three.
Baz looks for a way down off a rocky ledge—a brief respite in the steep and dangerous descent off Breakwind Ridge.
Courtesy of Tim Jarvis
Luckily the traverse proved worthwhile, and below us now was another steep snow slope, followed by a low vertical rock band that looked climbable if we were careful. Guiding one another’s feet and hands into good hand- and footholds, we got down the final rock band, arriving at a ledge before a scramble sideways onto more climbable ground. Two hundred or so meters later, we were down to the valley floor. I’d always assumed that Breakwind had been named by Shackleton based on its forming a natural barrier to the westerly winds that had been at our backs the whole way, but, given the extreme nature of our final descent, I’m not so sure. As far as I was concerned, it was more “Touch Cloth” than “Break Wind.”
We were greeted by the noise of penguins and shortly thereafter by the film crew, full of questions about how it had been, and how excited we must now be. We were, of course, excited but, to be honest, were still reliving the recent descent down Breakwind and were focused on trying to cross the surprisingly substantial meltwater barrier of the König Glacier. The toes on my right foot were still numb and I certainly wasn’t keen to soak my boots with a wade through the raging torrent of meltwater that surged through a break in the shingle beach from the glacial lake dammed up behind it. Seals were struggling to swim against the current and I didn’t fancy trying my luck, especially with eight kilometers still to travel and with night gradually closing in. I also knew it would be foolhardy to remove my boots, given how numb my right foot was.
Hobbling in pain, I was preoccupied with wanting to see what state my feet were in—particularly the numb toes on my right foot. But I wasn’t going to do it with cameras present. Baz, meanwhile, was tired of being stuck on the wrong side of the meltwater channel and subjected to questions, and so retraced his steps to the edge of the lake. Casually gauging its depth based on a crude assessment of how far out of the water a distant penguin seemed to be protruding, he strode biblically forth with Worsley-esque abandon. The penguin had in fact been standing on the far shore but, luckily for us, the water was only knee deep.
Past Crean Lake, which almost claimed Shackleton’s party at the last hurdle when they plunged through its icy surface. In the distance the arrow shows our descent off Breakwind.
Courtesy of Paul Larsen
Ferocious katabatic winds gusted down the valley, their approach easy to see, preceded as it was by disturbance on the water and penguins being bowled over like tenpins. With wetter feet than normal, I didn’t pause for the camera crew, instead heading for the far side of the valley to assess my right foot. I climbed the steep slope following the band of darker vegetation that marked the flow of the small stream out of Crean Lake as the most direct route up the slope. Shackleton would have done exactly the same thing, explaining why he and Crean ended up walking across the frozen lake and plunging through the surface. Managing to stop to wring out my socks and massage my ivory
toes before Joe the cameraman bounded into view for an interview, I got moving again as dusk and cold came on quickly.
Walking over the strange lunar landscape of uneven rock was desperately painful. Sparks from my boots were a thing of the past as many of the hobnails had either gone or been bent sideways or driven up into the soles of my boots with the impact of walking on the rocks for which they were not designed. When we finally reached the top of the pass, a roaring wind at our backs afforded us our first view of the prized Stromness, five kilometers away and rust red in the late evening sun. It was long since deserted; the only movements far below were the glints of light on Australis’s superstructure as it scudded across Stromness Bay, headed for a rendezvous with us at the deserted whaling station.
Stromness: only five kilometers away now.
Courtesy of Paul Larsen
Success! Stromness at last. The color matches the mood as we set off flares in celebration.
Courtesy of Jo Stewart
We regrouped at the top of the pass, congratulating one another warmly for our combined focus and concentration of the past four days. We kept moving for fear of stiffening up and not being able to get going again, descending the steep, loose rocks while doing our best to preserve our feet as they slid forward in our boots.
On the final approach to Stromness I soothed the burning, raw sensation on the base of my feet by walking through the stream on the valley floor, thankful that I didn’t need to preserve my boots any further. Larso and I sat to wait for Baz, who had stopped to look at the waterfall down which Shackleton and his men inexplicably descended, perhaps due to extreme tiredness and the fact that the ground around them was covered in snow. Otherwise I saw no reason for them to either need or want to descend it.
Larso closed his eyes and had a microsleep. When Baz appeared five minutes later, I woke Larso, telling him he’d had half an hour in a parody of Shackleton’s motivational strategy of allowing Worsley and Crean to think they’d slept for longer than they had. He laughed knowingly, scarcely able to believe like me that around the final knoll lay the promised land of Stromness, once we’d run the gauntlet of aggressive fur seals—just a short stagger away.
Ghostly white figures—not the ghosts of whalers but our colleagues, wearing the conspicuous white of our modern Henri Lloyd overalls—stood waiting to greet us at the water’s edge. We had taken ninety-six hours to Shackleton’s thirty-six as night fell on the longest of days and on an expedition that at times I’d thought would never end.
12
NEVER THE LOWERED BANNER
Preparing to re-create history.
Courtesy of Tim Jarvis
Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
Throughout the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
Thomas Mordaunt, The Call
Old gear, new challenges: me, dressed for action.
Courtesy of Paul Larsen
Walking into Stromness in the failing light of 11 January meant that we achieved the “Shackleton double,” bringing with it a mix of emotions that are hard to describe. Certainly there is elation, relief and pride and a great sense of camaraderie amongst the team, but added to this there is now an overwhelming sense of feeling humbled by our achievement. Without doubt this relates to having got closer to understanding what Shackleton went through on the original journey almost a century ago. The pain, fear, suffering and doubt that he and his five colleagues needed to overcome to achieve their incredible journey of survival as winter approached, [while] the majority of his men remained behind on Elephant Island clinging to life and no backup existed, simply because no-one knew that he or his men were still alive. All of this after enduring a year and a half on the crippled Endurance and the floating pack ice of the Weddell Sea. That we have managed to emulate some of this story and get close to the kind of determination he needed to win through is truly humbling.
I wrote these words immediately after finishing our journey and I stand by them now. Without doubt they go a good way toward describing the way I feel. With hindsight and my right foot now recovering, however, I can look afresh at the events of our two expeditions nearly a hundred years apart and draw some conclusions as to how Shackleton triumphed through such adversity and why he was a restless spirit constantly drawn to the next challenge. Speaking to Worsley on board the Caird, Shackleton put his life philosophy simply: “Never for me the lowered banner, never the last endeavour.”
There were certainly many interesting parallels and some clear differences between our two boat journeys, although obviously our intention was to replicate what he’d done as precisely as possible. Setting out obvious differences between them enables a clearer assessment of his methods and motivations from the body of our common experience.
By way of similarities, the Caird and the Alexandra Shackleton negotiated a band of brash ice that orbits Elephant Island (according to Worsley, pronounced “Hell-of-an-Island” by the men), traveled past icebergs, and were accompanied by whales and albatross. All the while we both remained mercifully untroubled by pack ice during our journeys—something we were particularly relieved about given that in 2013 Antarctica’s pack ice was at its maximum extent for decades.
In terms of differences, Shackleton had set off with a team whose goal was to cross the Antarctic continent in order to eclipse the achievements of all who had gone before—a journey that perhaps would be Shackleton’s swan song. As such, his team of twenty-seven included surgeons, a cook, an artist, engineers, scientists of various disciplines, proven land-based expeditioners, and, of course, seamen of the highest caliber, all recruited for their skill and resilience along with other, more novel traits. Our six-man expedition team, meanwhile, reflected skills required for just the small boat journey and climb over South Georgia—a journey that we all specifically signed up for but that none of the James Caird crew could have ever anticipated doing.
That our two teams departed from Point Wild after very different journeys to get there is taken as a given. Ours was a journey of organizational challenges but relative safety; Shackleton and his twenty-seven men had endured a brutal, dangerous, cold, five-day open-boat journey in their three lifeboats across the sea to Elephant Island from the edge of the pack ice. This followed ten months’ incarceration aboard their stricken ship and five months camped on the ice that is an epic tale of survival in its own right and one we could not, and did not, experience. It meant that we set off from Elephant Island in a very different frame of mind. Regardless of the difficulty of the journey ahead for the James Caird, I feel Shackleton’s team was on an improving trajectory psychologically after the terrible disappointment of the failure of their original goal to cross the continent. After all, they had at least escaped their dying ship, survived the pack ice and the open-boat journey to Elephant Island, and could build on what had already been achieved. We, on the other hand, had come from a position of safety and were thrust into our challenge, no pun intended, cold. Common to both crews was the dangerous journey ahead, which, regardless of the fact they left through necessity and we voluntarily, aligned very closely once we were under way.
Our departure date, however, was January 23 whereas for Shackleton it was April 24—summer versus autumn and less cold for us as a result. We had no option on this; it was the only time of year we could get permits based on there being at least some other ship traffic in the event things went terribly wrong for us or Australis. Practically speaking, this had a couple of implications. First, it meant that Shackleton had air temperatures probably 5˚C colder than we did (-5˚C to -10˚C for him and zero to -5˚C for us), although the absence of a thermometer on his trip means we can’t be sure. Sea temperatures would have been about the same, but the colder air would have made their lives more miserable, and also resulted in thick ice forming on the deck and sails of the James Caird. We only had occasional snow and sleet adhering to our sails and coating our deck in a thin
layer of slush. Put simply, we didn’t have the same problems of icing up, which made the Caird far more unstable than the Alexandra Shackleton through a combination of extra weight on deck and reduced weight below due to their being a lighter crew by perhaps 100 kilograms—the weight of a large man. The fifteen inches of ice on the Caird’s deck that both Shackleton and Worsley mention in their accounts could, even if they overstated it, have easily equated ten or perhaps twenty times the weight of our life raft and cameras on deck. This gave the Caird a “tendency to capsize,” as Worsley delicately put it. The ice also meant the Caird sat lower in the water, making her more susceptible to waves inundating them. Some consolation was the fact that the men were physically smaller than us so had more room below deck. The additional presence below deck in the Alexandra Shackleton of safety gear including survival suits, life jackets, flares, and electronics meant we were even more cramped than they were, albeit theoretically safer.