Moving early next morning with considerable wind, they got into bad ice with cracks, down which some of the dogs fell and had to be drawn up; but finally, finding a better route, reached the Polaris Boat Camp, where, leaving some meat for the dogs when returning, they continued on toward Gap Valley, generally over rolling floes, and through rubble, requiring a good deal of cutting, tugging, and pushing.
When three miles out they went into camp again, leaving Ellis to prepare supper for all, while the others, with both sledges, returned to the Boat Camp.
Leaving Brainard to get ready the alcohol to be taken from the whale-boat, they kept on along shore to the foot of the cliffs and the cache. Here they found the snow-slopes much worse than on their last visit, but, the sledges being empty, they could have gone along over anything except a stone wall, and even that would have had to be very high to stop them. Fox-tracks were seen near the cache, but they found it intact. The ice they had piled about it was almost covered by the drifting snow. The contents of the cache, about one thousand pounds in all, were put on the two sledges, and soon after they went down a snow-bank so steep and hard that the sledges took entire command, though all hands tried to hold them back; but the dogs keeping out of the way, no harm was done. This was at Cape Sumner, whence they returned to the Boat Camp. Here, taking on the things prepared by Brainard, they returned to the tents. After supper some hours were spent in getting ready the rations for from twenty to forty-eight days. Jewell and Ellis were both complaining; otherwise, every thing looked very promising.
On the morning of the 30th, it was clear overhead but cloudy around the horizon, and a slight snow was falling. The loads were about eleven hundred pounds to each team, but the dogs did admirably, and good speed was made, the ice being covered with a very light depth of snow. At the mouth of the gorge by which they were to ascend and cross the Brevoort Peninsula, they reduced the load on each sledge and started up this narrow, rocky, winding cañon. The snow was hard and they were getting along well, when right before them appeared a wall of snow, so steep and hard that Lockwood had to use his big knife, to ascend. It was about thirty feet high. He went alone to view the situation. A few yards beyond was a kind of ice tunnel whose roof was about three feet high. Then came another high, steep snow-drift with a snow-cavern alongside, probably fifty yards in length; and also a few feet farther was found a deep pit formed by the snow. Climbing around this and proceeding half a mile, he found that the gorge made a bend to the east and became still more narrow and rocky; but a side ravine offered a chance to get out of this big gutter, up a long, steep slope of hard snow, three or four times the height of the preceding drifts; and then Lockwood found himself on the table-land overlooking Newman Bay.
The sledges with great difficulty gained this comparatively level divide. The landmarks not being altogether familiar to Lockwood, he took a long walk after supper to a distant ridge, where, seeing the sea-coast, his way became perfectly clear. It was a lonely and dismal walk, and the ridge seemed to get farther away as he approached it. After more than two hours’ absence he returned to the tents, crawled in alongside of Sergeant Brainard, and was quickly lulled to sleep notwithstanding the snoring of Frederick. The horrid sound issuing from his bag was as loud as a brass band at a circus.
The process of getting breakfast was to be preferred to that of getting supper. When a man went into camp, after a toilsome day of travel, and had helped to pitch tent and unload the sledge, it was hard, while covered with frost, with cold and perhaps wet feet, to chop ice and meat, and handle cold metal.
After an uncomfortable night, with the temperature down to -45°, they started again. Proceeding several miles, they reached a narrow, winding ravine, and finally a gorge, which they followed until they came to the head of the wide Gap Valley, and thence to the sea-coast. Turning east, they continued on a few hundred yards, and were then stopped by the ice-wall, which crowded so closely to the shore that the sledges could not be hauled through. Lockwood and Frederick pitched the tent, while Brainard went ahead with the axe, and, after much hard work, made a passage about one eighth of a mile long through this place. They managed to worry through with half the load by three o’clock, and, leaving Brainard to get supper, Lockwood and Frederick went on with half the load for about one and a half miles. The route beyond the bad place was excellent. Dropping the load, they returned to the tent by four o’clock. Jewell came along later, he and Ellis complaining again of their difficulty in keeping up with the sledge when it went faster than a slow walk.
While approaching the cairn at Repulse Harbor, on the 1st of April, Brainard’s sharp eyes discovered the site of the English depot of rations, which contained Lieutenant Beaumont’s sextant, an English flag, a cooking-lamp, old clothes, and some foot-gear. The road before them was excellent, and they made good time, soon passing the route of the preceding year, which reached the coast just east of Repulse Harbor.
On coming near Drift Point, they were better able to see the northern expanse outside the ice-wall which lined the coast and had interrupted the view. Lockwood saw a good deal of young ice interspersed with holes, and leads of open water. The main pack beyond seemed permeated by leads of what had been quite recently open water. Dark, misty “water-clouds” were seen everywhere northward. The young ice extended along shore in both directions as far as they could see, and out from shore a hundred yards or more. Beyond it was the polar pack, broken into small floes and rubble-ice, which had a glistening green appearance, as though recently pushed up by the grinding of the fields about it; all this was very surprising.
They made their way over the snow-slopes of Drift Point and beyond until the near approach of the cliffs on one side and the ice-wall on the other brought them to a halt eighty miles from Fort Conger. Here they encamped with everything, having come thus far in six days.