Before starting from Camp 32 they built a depôt (the Lower Glacier depôt), made it very conspicuous, and left a good deal of gear there. Then at the very beginning of their march they got into big pressure, and must have passed over several crevasses. After four hours, however, they were clear of the pressure, and then they said good-bye to Meares and Demetri, who took back a note from Scott to say that 'Things are not so rosy as they might be, but we keep our spirits up and say the luck must turn. This is only to tell you that I find I can keep up with the rest as well as of old.'
The start after lunch was anxious work, for the question whether they could pull their loads had to be answered. Scott's party went away first, and, to their joy, found that they could make fairly good headway. Every now and again the sledge sank in a soft patch which brought them up, and then they got sideways to the sledge and hauled it out. 'We learned,' Scott wrote on December 11, at Camp 33, 'to treat such occasions with patience.... The great thing is to keep the sledge moving, and for an hour or more there were dozens of critical moments when it all but stopped, and not a few when it brought up altogether. The latter were very trying and tiring. But suddenly the surface grew more uniform and we more accustomed to the game, for after a long stop to let the other parties come up, I started at 6 and ran on till 7, pulling easily without a halt at the rate of about 2 miles an hour. I was very jubilant; all difficulties seemed to be vanishing; but unfortunately our history was not repeated with the other parties. Bowers came up half an hour after us. They also had done well at the last, and I'm pretty sure they will get on all right. Keohane is the only weak spot, and he only, I think, because temporarily blind. But Evans' party didn't get up till 10. They started quite well, but got into difficulties, did just the wrong thing by straining again and again, and so, tiring themselves, went from bad to worse. Their ski shoes, too, are out of trim.'
During the morning of the 12th they steered for the Commonwealth Range until they reached about the middle of the glacier and then the course was altered for the 'Cloudmaker,' and afterwards still further to the west. In consequence they got a much better view of the southern side of the main glacier than Shackleton's party had obtained, and a number of peaks not noticed previously were observed. On the first stage of this march Scott's party was bogged time after time, and do what they could their sledge dragged like a huge lump of lead. Evans' team had been sent off in advance and kept well ahead until lunch-time. Then, when Scott admits being 'pretty well cooked,' the secret of their trouble was disclosed in a thin film with some hard knots of ice on the runners of the sledge; these impediments having been removed they went ahead without a hitch, and in a mile or two resumed their leading position. As they advanced it became more and more evident that, with the whole of the lower valley filled with snow from the storm, they would have been bogged had they been without ski. 'On foot one sinks to the knees, and if pulling on a sledge to half-way between knee and thigh.'
Scott's hope was that they would get better conditions as they rose, but on the next march the surface became worse instead of better, the sledges simply plunging into the soft places and stopping dead. So slow in fact was the progress they made, that on his sledge Scott decided at lunch to try the 10-foot runners under the cross-bars, for the sledge was sinking so deeply that the cross-pieces were on the surface and acting as brakes. Three hours were spent in securing the runners, and then Scott's party started and promptly saw what difficulties the other teams were having.
In spite of the most desperate efforts to get along, Bowers and his men were so constantly bogged that Scott soon passed them. But the toil was awful, because the snow with the sun shining and a high temperature had become very wet and sticky, and again and again the sledge got one runner on harder snow than the other, canted on its side, and refused to move. At the top of the rise Evans' party was reduced to relay work, and shortly afterwards Bowers was compelled to adopt the same plan. 'We,' Scott says, 'got our whole load through till 7 P.M., camping time, but only with repeated halts and labour which was altogether too strenuous. The other parties certainly cannot get a full load along on the surface, and I much doubt if we could continue to do so, but we must try again to-morrow. I suppose we have advanced a bare four miles to-day and the aspect of things is very little changed. Our height is now about 1,500 feet.'
On the following morning Evans' party got off first from Camp 35, and after stiff hauling for an hour or so found the work much easier than on the previous day. Bowers' contingent followed without getting along so well, and so Scott, whose party were having no difficulty with their load, exchanged sledges with them, and a satisfactory morning's march was followed by still better work in the afternoon, eleven or twelve miles being gained. 'I think the soft snow trouble is at an end, and I could wish nothing better than a continuance of the present surface. Towards the end of the march we were pulling our load with the greatest ease. It is splendid to be getting along and to find some adequate return for the work we are putting into the business.'
At Camp 37, on Friday, December 15, they had reached a height of about 2,500 feet, after a march on which the surface steadily improved and the snow covering over the blue ice became thinner and thinner. During the afternoon they found that at last they could start their sledges by giving one good heave, and so, for the first time, they were at liberty to stop when they liked without the fear of horrible jerks before they could again set the sledge going. Patches of ice and hard névé were beginning to show through in places, and had not the day's work been interrupted by a snowstorm at 5 P.M. their march would have been a really good one, but, as it was, eleven more miles had to be put to their credit. The weather looked, however, very threatening as they turned in for the night, and Scott expressed a fervent hope that they were not going to be afflicted by snowstorms as they approached the worst part of the glacier.
As was to be expected after the storm they found the surface difficult when the march was resumed, but by sticking to their work for over ten hours—'the limit of time to be squeezed into one day'—they covered eleven miles, and altered greatly the aspect of the glacier. Beginning the march as usual on ski, they had to take them off in the afternoon because they struck such a peculiarly difficult surface that the sledges were constantly being brought up. Then on foot they made better progress, though no advance could be made without the most strenuous labour. The brittle crust would hold for a pace or two, and then let them down with a bump, while now and again a leg went down a crack in the hard ice underneath. So far, since arriving among the disturbances, which increased rapidly towards the end of the march, they had not encountered any very alarming crevasses, though a large quantity of small ones could be seen.
At the end of the march to Camp 39, Scott was able to write, 'For once we can say "Sufficient for the day is the good thereof." Our luck may be on the turn—I think we deserve it. In spite of the hard work everyone is very fit and very cheerful, feeling well fed and eager for more toil. Eyes are much better except poor Wilson's; he has caught a very bad attack. Remembering his trouble on our last Southern journey, I fear he is in for a very bad time.... I'm inclined to think that the summit trouble will be mostly due to the chill falling on sunburned skins. Even now one feels the cold strike directly one stops. We get fearfully thirsty and chip up ice on the march, as well as drinking a great deal of water on halting. Our fuel only just does it, but that is all we want, and we have a bit in hand for the summit.... We have worn our crampons all day (December 17) and are delighted with them. P.O. Evans, the inventor of both crampons and ski shoes, is greatly pleased, and certainly we owe him much.'
On the 19th, although snow fell on and off during the whole day and crevasses were frequent, a splendid march of 14 miles was accomplished. The sledges ran fairly well if only the haulers could keep their feet, but on the rippled ice which they were crossing it was impossible to get anything like a firm foothold. Still, however, they stuck most splendidly to their task, and on the following day even a better march was made to Camp 41.