The first rock—Possession Nunataks—loomed ahead, two hundred feet above, up a slope of half a mile. Here a depot of provisions and spare gear was made, sufficient to take us back to the Hippo. The rock was found by Watson to be gneiss, rich in mica, felspar and garnets. We lunched in this place and resumed our march at midnight.
The second nunatak was on the course; a sharp peak in the south, hidden by the contour of the uprising ridges. In four miles we steadily ascended eight hundred feet. While we were engaged pitching camp, a Cape pigeon flew overhead.
There were advantages in travelling at night. The surface was firmer, our eyes were relieved from the intense glare and our faces no longer blistered. On the other hand, there were disadvantages. The skirt of the tent used to get very wet through the snow thawing on it in the midday sun, and froze solid when packed up; the floor-cloths and sleeping-bags, also, never had a chance of drying and set to the same icy hardness. When we had mounted higher I intended to return to work by day.
It was not till the altitude was three thousand feet that we came in sight of the far peak to the south. We were then pulling again in daylight. The ice-falls of the Denman Glacier on the left were still seen descending from the plateau, while down on the plain we saw that the zone of disrupted ice, into which the short and intricate track of our northern attempt had been won, extended for quite thirty miles.
The surface then softened in a most amazing fashion and hauling became a slow, dogged strain with frequent spells. A little over four miles was the most we could do on the 18th, and on the 19th the loads were dragging in a deluge of dry, flour-like snow. A long halt was made at lunch to repair a badly torn tent.
The peak ahead was named Mount Barr-Smith. It was fronted by a steep rise which we determined to climb next day. On the eastern margin of the Denman Glacier were several nunataks and higher, rising ground.
Following a twenty-four hours' blizzard, the sky was overcast, with the usual dim light filtering through a mist of snow. We set off to scale the mountain, taking the dip-circle with us. The horizon was so obscured that it was useless to take a round of angles. Fifteen miles south of Mount Barr-Smith, and a little higher there was another peak, to be subsequently called Mount Strathcona; also several intervening outcrops. Not a distinct range of mountains as we had hoped. The Denman Glacier sweeps round these projecting rocks from the south-west, and the general flow of the ice-sheet is thereby concentrated within the neck bounded by the two peaks and the higher land to the east. Propelled by the immense forces of the hinterland, this stream of ice is squeezed down through a steep valley at an accelerated speed, and, meeting the slower moving Shackleton Shelf, rends it from top to bottom and presses onward. Thus chaos, icequake, and ruin.
Our tramp to Mount Barr-Smith was through eighteen inches of soft snow, in many places a full two feet deep. Hard enough for walking, we knew from experience what it was like for sledging. There was only sufficient food for another week and the surface was so abominably heavy that in that time, not allowing for blizzards, it would have been impossible to travel as far as we could see from the summit of Mount Barr-Smith, while four miles a day was the most that could have been done. Our attempt to make east by rounding the Denman Glacier to the south had been foiled, but by turning back at that point, we stood a chance of saving our two remaining dogs, who had worked so well that they really deserved to live.
Sunday December 22 broke with a fresh breeze and surface drift; overhead a clear sky. We went back to Mount Barr-Smith, Kennedy taking an observation for latitude, Watson making a geological survey and collecting specimens, Harrisson sketching. The rocks at the summit were granites, gneisses and schists. The latitude worked out at 67 degrees 10.4' S., and we were a little more than one hundred and twenty miles in an air-line from the hut.
In the next two days, downhill, we "bullocked" through eleven miles, reaching a point where the depot at Possession Nunataks was only sixteen miles away. The surface snow was very sticky in places, clogging the runners badly, so that they had to be scraped every half-mile. Stewed skua was the feature of our Christmas Eve supper.