On the 5th June the summit of the next divide was reached at an elevation of 5700 feet above sea-level. From here the travelling was very good, and 19½ and 21 miles were made in two marches; and on the 8th June they camped in sight of St. George’s Fiord, but they believed it was Sherard-Osborn Fiord. At the end of this march a storm broke upon them, and they were imprisoned in a rough shelter two days.
Peary now found that he was on the southern edge of a great glacier basin, and to avoid this he deflected his course to the south-east, which forced him to ascend steep icy slopes. It took two days of the hardest work to get out of this trap, and at the end of them he had lost 15 miles of his hard-earned northing. During this climb, Peary’s best dog, the king of the team, received a sprain. After limping at the rear of the sledges for two or three days, he lagged behind, and was lost in one of the ice-cap storms. Two dogs fell into a crevasse and hung suspended at the end of their traces until hoisted out.
Starting again on a north-east course, they had not advanced far when they were brought up by a group of enormous crevasses, and just as these were reached a dense fog swept up from the glacier basin and delayed them eighteen hours.
Peary now decided to strike farther into the interior, so as to avoid these glacier basins, but in carrying out this plan he found the snow increasing and the grade so steep that he was compelled to steer more to the north.
He had advanced in this direction only 4 miles when the big sledge again broke down, and an entire day was lost in repairing it. Next day the temperature became so high and altered the surface of the snow so much that they found it impossible to go on. They had to wait a fall of temperature, and this did not occur for two days. At this camp spare articles weighing 75 lb. were thrown away.
Starting again, they made a march of 6¼ miles, going over the road twice. The following day, land again made its appearance ahead of them, and Peary deflected first to the north-east and then to the east. Advancing 8 miles, they found themselves hemmed in by a series of huge concentric crevasses, and to cross these it was necessary to take a south-easterly direction. At one time two dogs fell into a crevasse, and at another one of the sledges broke through.
Next day they covered nearly 18 miles, and on the following one they made 20½ miles. Land was now visible to the north-west, north, and north-east.
Towards the close of the next march a fiord with high sharp peaks on its northern side came clearly into view. Starting again on the 26th June in a north-east direction, Peary soon changed the course to east true, and then to south-east, so as to avoid a fiord which was seen ahead. Assuming this fiord to be Victoria Inlet, and thinking he could round it, Peary kept on to the south-east till the 1st of July, but still the mountains of the shore were in view. On this day a wide opening, bounded on either side by high vertical cliffs, showed up in the north-east over the summits immediately adjacent to the Inland Ice. Through this opening could be seen neither the reflected ice-blink of distant ice-cap nor the cloud-loom of land.
Peary now decided to reach this opening and discover whether it looked out into the East Greenland Arctic Ocean. Changing his course to north-east, he made for the red-brown mountains of the strange land. The grade now became so steep that it was necessary to descend diagonally along the slope.
The highest convex of a crescent moraine which climbed well up into the ice-cap was selected as a landing-place, and after wading many streams, and floundering through a mile of slush which covered the lower portion of the ice, they clambered upon the rocks of the moraine 4000 feet above the sea.