With ski & sledge over Arctic glaciers

by Sir William Martin Conway

To the south were a maze and multitude of peaks. We thought that we identified Hornsunds Tind in a solitary white tower very far away. I afterward took a true bearing of it with the theodolite, and, on reducing the observation at home, find that the peak observed stands exactly in the line of Hornsunds Tind; so that if the two are not identical the coincidence is extraordinary. The distance of the mountain from the Three Crowns is just a hundred miles. I find it difficult to believe that such a distance can often be pierced by the sight in the relatively dense atmosphere of Spitsbergen. Foreland Sound was, as usual, full of fog, but the peaks of the Foreland itself rose out of its shining embrace. The highest group is south of the middle of the island; its members are beautifully white and of graceful form. Farther north the peaks are smaller and only their tips appeared. The Cross Bay Mountains with their serrated edge looked finer than ever; then came the great snowfield, beheld in all its extent, stretching up to a high undulating crest and back to remote bays and hollows—fascinating to look upon, but who shall say how wearisome to wander over? Far away to the north-east was a row of mountains of varied forms, some white and dome-like, others sharply pointed, others again chisel-edged. We saw them now for the first time, and believed them to be the range that borders Wijde Bay on the west; but they have since proved to be the mountains at the head of that bay, between it and Dicksons, a range of unsuspected importance in the structure of the country. The sky overhead was blue and clear, fading downward into white, as in an old Flemish picture. There was no movement in the cool air. Garwood left me alone on the top and went down to crack rocks. Long did I sit in perfection of enjoyment, letting my eye roam round and round the amazing panorama. There was a peculiar sensation of being in the midst of a strange world, whose parts seemed to radiate from this point. Never did I feel more keenly the wonder of the domain of ice. Utter silence reigned, till there came a writhing in the air, heard but not felt. It passed, returned, and passed again, as though flocks of invisible beings were hurrying by on powerful wings.

Chilled to the bone, at length I began the descent, picking up Garwood and some of his fossil spoils on the way. A magnificent ski-slide carried us in a great curving zigzag, first to the foot of the southern Crown, then round the snowy base to the tents. We dropped a thousand feet in a few minutes. So keen was the joy of this rush through the air, that we talked of scrambling up again to repeat it, but the attractions of supper proved more powerful than those of glissading.

Our view from the middle Crown showed that nothing was to be gained by pushing camp farther north, unless we went very much farther than the means at our disposal permitted. The whole region for many miles round could be mapped from the summits of hills within reach of our present camp. We judged it better, therefore, to climb from that base, rather than to spend time dragging sledges about over almost featureless snowfields. So, next morning (August 5), away we went on ski—Garwood, Nielsen, and I—carrying instruments and food on our backs, and delighted to have no hindering load a-drag behind. The weather continued faultless. Our plan was to follow the left margin of the glacier to the bay beyond the northern Crown, to turn up that to its head, and to climb the Diadem Peak, whose situation seemed specially favourable for a view. The snow was very soft and became softer every hour, but we shuffled comfortably over it and pitied our poor colleagues in the Alps, wading knee-deep in névé. The surface was not really in good condition for skiing; it was too soft and adhesive to be slippery. However, we made good progress, and in less than two hours the northern Crown was passed and the side glacier opened. It flows down from a ring of dolomite-capped peaks and comes out into the main glacier between the northern Crown and the peak beyond it, named by us the Exile because its crown has been wholly denuded away. It is a regular pyramid of red sandstone with top and corners rounded off. There is not a fragment of rock visible in situ, the whole solid substance of the mountain being buried beneath accumulations of débris.

Turning, then, with the northern Crown on our right hand, the Exile on our left, and the great snowfield at our backs, we made diagonally up the side glacier toward a snow-saddle between the Exile and the Diadem. All the snow was saturated with water, which gravitated to the middle of the valley and formed a great Slough of Despond there. Advancing very gingerly to find a way across, I suddenly sank up to my waist in the freezing mixture. The ski turned round under my feet and fastened them down, so that I was helplessly anchored, and it was all that Nielsen and Garwood could do to withdraw me from the uncomfortable position. We ultimately passed round the head of the Slough and swiftly made for the rocks of the Exile, where I undressed and wrung out my dripping things. Whether it was more comfortable to sit half-clothed while the things dried, or to put them on in a sodden condition, was a question I am now enabled to decide by experience. Fortunately the sunshine had a little warmth in it, but the preliminary bath certainly did not add to the enjoyment of lunch.

Just below the rocks was an open bergschrund into which Nielsen tumbled, ski and all, but he caught the upper edge and extricated himself with a mighty kick and pull. The hidden crevasses over which we slid were countless, but the ski deprived them of all power to injure or annoy. A slide from the rocks to the broad snow-saddle, then the ascent of the Diadem began. We knew that it would present no difficulties below the summit rocks. They were vertical on our side, but there were indications that the snow-slope reached far up them on the other. For some distance we could climb straight ahead; then the slope steepened and we had to zigzag, each man choosing his own route. About six hundred feet below the top, ski could no further go, for the surface was hard frozen, so that they obtained no grip upon it. They were accordingly left behind, planted erect, for if they are left lying down they will assuredly find means to break loose and go careering away to some remote level place. As soon as it became a question of kicking steps in the increasingly hard and steep slope, the scattered elements of the party concentrated and so came to the foot of the final peak together. A snow-slope, as we had foreseen, reached almost to the top, but it was cut across by two large bergschrunds, well enough bridged. The rope was now put on and the final approaches made in orthodox fashion. Scrambling up a few steep rocks, we came out on the curious little flat summit plain (4154 ft.), from whose edges the drop is vertical all round, except where the slope we ascended abuts.

The view resembled that from the middle Crown, but was more extensive to the north and east. The whole island was displayed. We overlooked the region of almost horizontally-bedded, chocolate-coloured sandstone, capped with dolomite near at hand, but dipping away from the old rocks underlying it, which appeared in the north-east as mountain ranges. Advent Bay was again clearly visible across Ice Fjord, so that the Diadem and the Crowns can be seen from the hotel there, a fact previously unsuspected. I set up the instruments and worked for more than an hour, growing colder and colder in the raw air. Garwood and Nielsen warmed themselves by building a big cairn as a monument of our climb.

The first stage of the descent required some care, for the slope was steep and of ice, whilst the bridges over the bergschrunds did not appear particularly strong. Once on the main snow-slope the rope could be laid aside and each could make for his ski by the shortest route. Nielsen went on ahead and disappeared over the bulging declivity at a great rate, but when I tried to follow his example I found it difficult to maintain a footing on the hard, icy slope. The boards under my feet shot away so quickly that without a powerful break I could not maintain my balance. No application of the spike of the ice-axe to the slope produced friction enough to prevent the bewilderment of a lightning-like descent, which always ended in a shattering overthrow. How Nielsen had managed remained a mystery to me, till I came up with him and learnt that he had put his ice-axe between his legs and sat upon it, thus turning himself into a tripod on runners. Riding, like a witch on a broomstick, he gained the gentler slope below without delay or misfortune. Garwood was less lucky, for one of his ski gave him the slip and raced away on its own account. We heard him howling aloft, but knew not what about till his truant shoe had dashed past, heading for a number of open crevasses. It leapt these in fine style, but bending away to the right, made for the hollow, north of the Exile, to which we had to descend to fetch it. Rather than reascend and return over the mile of snow-slope down which the ski had shot, we changed the route of our return. To see Garwood walking about unroped among the maze of crevasses and crossing bergschrunds by rotten snow-bridges was decidedly unpleasant. If he had fallen through anywhere we could have done nothing for him, and he would never have been seen again; but the fates were propitious. Instead of sliding down as we did, he had to wade through knee-deep snow, but that was the limit of his misfortune.

The great snowfield was joined at the north foot of the Exile, and straight running made for camp. It was a long and thirsty shuffle back, for, since my immersion, we had come across no drop of drinkable water, all that flows from the Exile and the northern Crown being chocolate-coloured and thick with sand. Areas of snow formation, new to us in appearance, were passed below the Exile; the most remarkable was where the surface of the névé was covered with a kind of scaly armour-plating, consisting of discs or flakes of ice, hard-frozen together, piled up and projecting over one another. Wind was the determining agent, I fancy, in producing this phenomenon. Steadily plodding on over the now uneven and adhesive snow, at last we reached camp, about midnight, well satisfied with the expedition. We had travelled eighteen and a half miles over the softest névé snow imaginable, besides climbing our peak and devoting some hours, en route and on the top, to the work of surveying. Without ski this would have been hard work for three days. During our absence Svensen had cleaned out the tents, dried and aired our things, and otherwise made himself useful. He had never expected us to appear again, so that his work was perhaps the more meritorious. Late at night we heard him lying in his tent and “prophesying” (as we used to call it) in deep and solemn tones to Nielsen. The further we went from the coast the more frequent and solemn were these deliverances, not a word of which could we understand. I asked Nielsen what they were about. “Oh,” he said, “he talks about his farm and his old woman, and what she gives him to eat; and then he says if he ever gets back home he will not go away any more as long as he lives.”

A few hours later Svensen set forth on his ski to fetch an instrument I required from the baggage below the Pretender. He was instructed on no account to quit the tracks made by the sledges on the way up, and to take care not to fall into any of the crevasses. Once fairly alone on the glacier, he proceeded to set these directions at naught. The tracks were devious; he would make a short cut and save himself time and distance. What mattered the maze of concealed crevasses? He frankly walked along them, whether on their arched roofs or the ice beside them being a mere matter of chance. We saw his tracks next day and wondered at his many escapes. As it was, he fell into two crevasses and only extricated himself with much difficulty. The Svensen that returned to camp was a yet sadder and more pessimistic individual than the one that set forth. He had looked Death in the face, and seemed to feel swindled in that he had escaped destruction.

This day the sky was actually covered with an unmistakable heat haze. Thunderstorms, I believe, never occur in Spitsbergen; if we had not known this, we should have thought one was brewing. It was actually hot and stuffy within the tent, but outside the temperature was perfect. Our intention was to climb the middle Crown again, when Svensen returned, and to spend some hours on the mountain, Garwood photographing and hunting for fossils in the limestone, I observing angles. At last we could set forth with theodolite and whole-plate camera for the top of the Crown. There was no novelty in the ascent, except that the sky was steadily clouding over, so that we had to race the weather. Unfortunately the clouds won. The sun was blotted out when we reached the top, many hills were obscured by clouds, and the panorama was rendered relatively uninteresting. There was nothing for Garwood to photograph, and far fewer points for me to observe than I could have wished. The cold became bitter. Fiddling with the little screws of the theodolite was horribly painful. I endured it for more than an hour before complete numbness rendered further work of that kind impossible. Nielsen kept warmth in his veins by prizing crags away; they thundered and crashed over the precipice on the north, finding a swift descent down one of the many vertical chimneys, and then rushing out on the snow-slope beneath. The results of his labours were widely spread abroad below. Before packing up to descend we all joined in building a big cairn, which, I think, will last for many years. A hurried descent down rocks and screes and a fine ski-slide to camp set the blood circulating merrily in our veins. The tents were just within the margin of a fog, which hung like a veil over the western landscape, where a mottled roof of cloud above the jagged crest of the Cross Bay hills shone golden bright, fading away below into the misty grey foreground of vaguely-outlined, broken ice.