With ski & sledge over Arctic glaciers

by Sir William Martin Conway

CHAPTER VII
THE SPITSBERGEN DOLOMITES

When the sun passed round behind the Pretender, casting his shadow out upon the glacier far beyond camp, a hard frost set in, sealing up the runlets of water and binding the loosened rocks on the face of the cliff, so that stonefalls became rare; but no sooner did the fiery monarch come out from his retreat behind the mountains in the east than all the batteries of the hills opened to salute him. The afternoon of August 3, being our morning, Garwood and I shouldered packs for a scramble on the Pretender, minded to pass northward round his foot and then make way up the ridge that forms, higher up, the lip of the funnel of the falling stones. The weather was glorious, but the white sea-fog had crept up to the tents, so that we set forth from the very edge of the mist. After going some little way up the main glacier we bore to the right on to the hillside, and went diagonally up a slope of snow. Below on the left was a bergschrund, and above on the right were the steep rocks. Presently the slope increased and became of hard ice, into which Garwood cut steps. The position was not altogether a safe one, for we had not bothered to bring a rope, and now discovered that quantities of stones were in the habit of falling down the slope into the bergschrund, which was ready to engulf either of us impartially in the event of a slip. However, we did not slip, and the sun had not yet reached the stones, which were still in the bondage of frost. The rocks above the slope were safely reached and a brief scramble carried us over the edge of the ridge on to the screes of the north-east face. Beyond them was a wide snow-slope reaching up to the steep dolomite cap that forms the top 500 feet of the peak. The snow was hard frozen, so the ascent had to be made up the screes. They were particularly loose, and that is all to say about them. Scree-slopes are never anything but nasty to climb. The top of them was the edge of the nearly level ridge, whence we looked down into the funnel on the other side and across to the beautiful dolomite cliff visible from camp. At the foot of the couloir of the funnel we could just discover our tiny tents.

The point thus gained was all that could be desired for surveying and geologising. Now was displayed in all its wide extent the névé region of the Crowns Glacier, utterly different in character from that of the King’s Highway. Here was no ice-filled trough between two serrated walls, but a huge expanse, so gently sloping as to appear flat—a marble pavement, of three hundred square miles, beneath the blue dome of heaven. Far away it swelled into low white domes, on whose sides a few rocks appeared, whilst in the north-east was its undulating upper edge, beyond which were remoter snow-covered plateaus with mountain summits peering over from yet farther off. The white névé was lined by the many-branching water-channels of its drainage system, like the veins in a leaf, indicating the structure and trend of the ice. Where areas were crevassed, blue shadows toned the white. Everywhere the delicate modelling of the surface, by slightly varying the amount of light reflected to the eye, produced a tender play of tones, within the narrowest conceivable limits from brightest to darkest. The whole was visibly a flowing stream, not a stagnant accumulation, for the curves of flow were everywhere discernible. Thus a sense of weight and volume was added to the effect of boundless expanse which first overwhelmed the observers. The noble flood of ice, narrowing considerably between the hill on which we stood, and the beautifully composed group of sharp-crested rock-peaks opposite, disappeared beneath the floor of sea-mist whereon the sunshine lay dazzling.

Turning round toward the east from this enthralling prospect, the eye rested on the group of the famous Crowns. They are called the Three Crowns on all the maps, but there are many more than three. The prominent trio are pyramidal hills of purple sandstone, shaped with almost artful regularity, each surmounted by a cap of the same dolomite limestone as that which crowns the Pretender. They resemble golden crowns above purple robes. The caps are the fragmentary remains of an ancient plateau, denuded away in the lapse of time. Just behind the Three Crowns we saw a low broad pass, giving access to the head of a glacier flowing eastward. There was sea-fog lying on it also, so we knew that Ekman Bay could not be very far off in that direction. This is the lowest and shortest pass between Kings Bay and Ice Fjord. Lightly laden men could cross this way in a long day’s march from sea to sea, climbing one of the Crowns en route. The expedition would take them through what is, to my thinking, the finest scenery in Spitsbergen. The whole panorama was clear to the remotest edge of the horizon, flooded with undimmed sunshine, and overarched by a sky faintly blue below, deeply azure in the fathomless zenith.

THE THREE CROWNS FROM KINGS BAY.

We spent some hours at this point, lunching, admiring, and taking observations. The view was, to me, so novel in character, so beautiful, so full of revelations that, for a long time, I was too excited to work. The other side, though less unusual, was hardly less wonderful. There the eye plunged down into the depth of the funnel, and beheld the stone-avalanches beginning their fall. Far below were the flocks of birds flying about the rocks. Their cries came faintly up to us. Finally, close at hand there was the great dolomite cliff, an absolute wall, more than ever resembling some artificial structure, the work of giants, falling to decay. The varied colouring of its beds and the vertical streaks caused by trickling water were as beautiful close at hand as when seen from the depths of the gulf of air below. We walked along the narrow ridge to the actual foot of this cliff, where the arête rises vertically, so that the further ascent must be made by the north-east face. There was a height of about 500 feet to be climbed by way of snow slopes, here and there narrowing into gullies between protruding beds of rock—so, at least, we thought, but the attempt showed that the slopes were of hard ice. The step-cutting involved had no attractions, for there was nothing to be gained by ascending to the peak. It would only show, on the other side, country already known to us, whilst we were to have many better opportunities of looking northward from points both higher and better situated. What settled the matter finally was the sight of our men just arriving at camp heavily laden with good things. We accordingly turned round and took the easy way downhill, glissading a good part of it on treacherous snow-covered ice.

After supper another expedition was made down the glacier all along under the Pretender’s face, in further investigation of the fault. It is only thus, by constant moving about beneath a great cliff, that one is finally enabled to realise its magnitude. One true measure of scale that a healthy man possesses is fatigue. When you have learned by actual experience that it takes several days’ marching to pass the base of a big Himalayan mountain, you begin to feel the size of the thing. A precipice of 200 feet differs only in size from one of 2000 feet. To appreciate the majesty of the larger, you must become physically conscious of its scale. Such knowledge has to be laboriously acquired. No one, I imagine, who has not climbed the Matterhorn, can have any real conception of the magnitude of the pyramid beheld in the view from the Riffel; yet a consciousness of the magnitude is an essential element in the impressiveness of the view. I believe that only mountain climbers are in a position to thrill with perfect resonance to the glory of a mountain prospect. The passion for mountain-climbing derives much of its power over men from thus fostering and developing in them the capacity for admiration, wonder, and worship in the presence of Nature’s magnificence.

Next day (August 4) camp was again struck for an onward march, some supplies being left behind for use on the way down. The crevassed nature of the glacier involved the choice of a very devious route far out upon the ice, then back toward the Crowns. When the foot of the middle Crown was reached, I called for my camera, but it could not be found. It had dropped off Nielsen’s sledge, and he must go back to retrieve it. Garwood and I accordingly set off to climb the Crown, leaving Svensen below, plunged again in miseries and forebodings, now that the sea was becoming remote and snowfields were spreading their hateful expanse around him. The pyramids of the south and middle Crowns are planted together on a snowy plinth. Up the slope of this we ascended on ski, taking a devious course to avoid the steepest incline, at the same time steering clear of a few groups of open crevasses. In three-quarters of an hour we were standing at the foot of the rocks, where the ski were left behind. A long and steep slope of débris had next to be surmounted. The material lies in an unstable condition and slips away beneath the foot at every step. Keeping as close as possible to the left arête, we gained height steadily. The débris accumulation becomes thinner as the summit is approached. Halfway up, little walls of rock emerge, and afford some agreeable scrambling. By the last of these the arête itself is gained and the ascent completed along it, except where an overhanging snow cornice forces the climber down on the south face. A little chimney gives access to the crowning rock (4000 ft.). The ascent from the top of the snow-slope took three-quarters of an hour. It is easy enough. The southern Crown (3840 ft.) can be similarly climbed by its south face, but the northern Crown (4020 ft.) would be more difficult, for it is cut off, apparently all the way round, by a short precipice, perhaps a hundred feet high. There are some gullies grooved into this wall, but they too are vertical. One or other of them would certainly prove climbable if any one cared to give the time needed for the attempt. All three Crowns were reputed inaccessible by the general opinion of persons who had only seen them from Kings Bay.

Our ascent was made for the purpose of obtaining a view, and generously were we rewarded. The northern Crown is higher than the middle one, and that in turn than the southern; but the differences are a few feet only, whilst in point of situation the middle Crown is best placed for a panorama. Garwood and I agreed that it was the most beautiful we had seen in Spitsbergen, though it was afterwards equalled by the view from the Diadem, and surpassed, in some respects, by that from Mount Hedgehog. What struck us most was the colour. The desert of snow was bluish or purplish-grey; only the sea-mist, hiding Kings Bay and the foot of the glacier, was pure white. In the foreground were the golden Crowns above purple slopes casting rich blue shadows. On the snowfields lay many sapphire-blue lakes. All the rock in sight was of some rich colour—yellow, orange, purple, red. Large glaciers radiated away in several directions: one down to Ekman Bay, whose head we could see, another to Ice Fjord, beyond whose distant waters we recognised Advent Bay and the hills behind it, with clouds lying still upon them. Last year, whenever we saw King James Land in the distance the sun was always shining on it. This year the Advent Vale region was hardly ever seen clear of clouds. It is the bad weather, as King James Land is the fine weather region of Spitsbergen.