The Mule Party Leaves Cape Evans—October 29, 1912
This is the start of the Search Journey. Everything which forethought can do has been done, and to a point twelve miles south of Corner Camp the mules will be travelling light owing to the depôts which have been laid. The barometer has been falling the last few days and is now low, while the Bluff is overcast. Yet it does not look like blizzard to come. Two Adélie penguins, the first, came to Cape Evans yesterday, and a skua was seen there on the 24th: so summer is really here.
October 30. Hut Point. It is now 8 p.m., and the mules are just off, looking very fit, keeping well together, and giving no trouble at the start. Their leaders turned in this afternoon, and to-night begins the new routine of night marching, just the same as last year. It did look thick on the Barrier this afternoon, and it was quite a question whether it was advisable for them to start. But it is rolling away now, being apparently only fog, which is now disappearing before some wind, or perhaps because the sun is losing its power. I think they will have a good march.
November 2, 5 a.m. Biscuit Depôt. Atkinson, Dimitri and I, with two dog-teams, left Hut Point last night at 8.30. We have had a coldish night's run, -21° when we left after lunch, -17° now. The surface was very heavy for the dogs, there being a soft coating of snow over everything since we last came this way, due no doubt to the foggy days we have been having lately. The sledge-meter makes it nearly 16 miles.
The mule party has two days' start on us, and their programme is to do twelve miles a day to One Ton Depôt. Their tracks are fairly clear, but there has been some drift from the east since they passed. We picked up our cairns well. We are pretty wet, having been running nearly all the way.
November 3. Early morning. 14½ miles. We are here at Corner Camp, but not without a struggle. We left the Biscuit Depôt at 6.30 p.m. yesterday, and it is now 4 a.m. The last six miles took us four hours, which is very bad going for dogs, and we have all been running most of the way. The surface was very bad, crusty and also soft: it was blowing with some low drift, and overcast and snowing. We followed the drifted-up mule tracks with difficulty and are lucky to have got so far. The temperature has been a constant zero.
There is a note here from Wright about the mules, which left here last night. They only saw two small crevasses on the way, but Khan Sahib got into the tide-crack at the edge of the Barrier, and had to be hauled out with a rope. The mules are going fast over the first part of the day, but show a tendency to stop towards the end: they keep well together except Khan Sahib, who is a slower mule than the others. It is now blowing with some drift, but nothing bad, and beyond the Bluff it seems to be clear. We are all pretty tired.
November 4. Early morning. Well! this has been a disappointing day, but we must hope that all will turn out well. We turned out at 2 a.m. yesterday and then it was clearing all round, a mild blizzard having been blowing since we camped. We started at five in some wind and low drift. It was good travelling weather, and except for the first three miles the surface has been fair to good, and the last part very good. Yet the dogs could not manage their load, which according to programme should go up a further 150 lbs. each team here at Dimitri Depôt. One of our dogs, Kusoi, gave out, but we managed to get him along tied to the stern of the sledge, because the team behind tried to get at him and he realized he had better mend his ways. We camped for lunch when Tresor also was pretty well done. We were then on a very good surface, but were often pushing the sledge to get it along. The mule party were gone when we started again, and probably did not see us. We came on to the depôt, but we cannot hope to get along far on bad surfaces if we cannot get along on good ones. The note left by Wright states that their sledge-meter has proved useless, and this leaves all three parties of us with only one, which is not very reliable now.
So it has been decided that the dogs must return from 80° 30´, or 81° at the farthest, and instead of four mules, as was intended, going on from there, five must go on instead. The dogs can therefore now leave behind much of their own weights and take on the mules' weights instead. And this is the part where the mules' weights are so heavy. Perhaps the new scheme is the best, but it puts everything on the mules from 80° 30´: if they will do it all is well: if they won't we have nothing to fall back on.