With ski & sledge over Arctic glaciers

by Sir William Martin Conway

After breakfast in the afternoon of August 17, as things looked a little better, we loaded ourselves with provisions, instruments, &c., and decided to make an expedition at all events to the base of Mount Hedgehog, and thence perhaps back to Horn Sound by way of Kittiwake Glacier. It was 8.30 P.M. when we set forth, all three in far from hopeful humour. We retraced the steps of the previous day, passing the ruined cookery, and going over undulating ground and up the right bank of Goose Glacier, then crossing the foot of a small side glacier, which brings down a moraine of grey marble streaked with pink, and so reaching the open ice where Garwood’s cairn came into view. Last year hidden crevasses were troublesome hereabouts, but there was no such danger now. Crevasses were either open or covered with firm roofs of frozen snow. We roped, of course, but the rope was not required—fortunately not, for Nielsen disliked and distrusted it, and would not keep it tight, ultimately refusing to wear it any longer and preferring to go detached. Give him rocks or the sea, he said; as for ice and snow he knew nothing about them, and did not feel safe on them, roped or unroped. Overhead was the usual roof of cloud. Gradually, as we advanced and left the coast behind, we perceived the roof was becoming thinner. Small holes began to appear, with faint suggestions of rock behind them. Our excitement increased, for Garwood knew that they were the rocks of Mount Hedgehog’s great precipice. Thinner and thinner became the veil of mist as we walked expectant over the hard-frozen névé, the mountain behind becoming every moment more clearly disclosed, till at last it was fully revealed to us, a glorious wall of silver-dusted rock with the crimson fires of heaven falling like a mantle upon it. It was about midnight, two days before the sun’s first setting. The radiant orb was upon the north horizon, half-buried in the fog above which we were rising. A flood of crimson light flowed from it over all mountains that rose above the clouds, so that every rock was like a glowing coal, whilst the snow-domes resembled silken cushions.

Now at length I realized the position and nature of that Horn Sunds Tind of which I had heard and read so much. It is not a peak, nor a mountain, but a range of peaks running, not parallel to Horn Sound, as marked on the chart, but at right-angles to it and almost north and south. At the north end of the range is the highest point, a needle of rock very similar to the Aiguille du Dru in form. This is separated by a deep depression from the larger, but, as we afterwards learnt, lower, mountain-mass to which we have attached the old name, Mount Hedgehog, originally given to the whole range by its English discoverers. Of this mass the culminating point is at its south end. From it there descends to the west a steep rock rib, ending below in a shattered little peak, beyond which comes a snow-saddle. The west ridge rises slightly again to a rock mound (Bastion Point), falls to another and wider snow-saddle, and is thence continued as a splintered rocky range, forming the left bank of the branch of Goose Glacier up which we had come. It was upon an outlier of Bastion Point that Garwood and his party encamped last year. We found their tent-platform as fresh as if it had only just been abandoned. Garwood affectionately identified the various empty tins lying about and was lucky enough to find his own pocket-compass uninjured where it had been forgotten. In the neighbouring cairn were the records of their climb, a separate one written by each member of the party.

HORN SUNDS TINDER.

There was no doubt in our minds what next thing demanded doing. We must climb the peak above, while the chance offered, for the sky overhead was brilliantly clear; there was no wind and no apparent change of weather impending. Sea, shore, lowlands, and glaciers were unfortunately buried beneath the floor of clouds, but all hills over 1000 feet high were likely to be disclosed, so that the view would be of great geographical interest. Nielsen preferred not to accompany our ascent, so we gave him the plane-table and whatever else could not be carried further. At 12.30 A.M. (August 18) we parted in opposite directions, Nielsen going back to camp, we two upward to the broad snow col between Bastion Point and the foot of the great west ridge.

Before describing the ascent it is advisable to show the rather special importance attaching to it. In the year 1823 Sir Edward (then Captain) Sabine was sent to Spitsbergen and East Greenland to make pendulum observations for determining the figure of the earth. From what he observed on that brief visit he was led to conclude that Spitsbergen is a land-area excellently adapted to the purpose of measuring an arc of the meridian in a high latitude, a measurement which would be of the utmost value for well-known scientific reasons not in this place needing discussion. It is enough here to say that Sabine set forth his ideas in a letter (February 8, 1826) addressed to Davies Gilbert, M.P., Vice-President of the Royal Society. From that day to this the proposal has not been lost sight of, but before an elaborately accurate measurement of a line some 240 miles in length could be undertaken it was necessary to decide upon the various points to be used for the angles of the trigonometrical net. This could only be done after Spitsbergen itself had been roughly surveyed. The first definite step toward carrying out Sabine’s project was made by Professor Otto Torell,[12] who included in the plans of the Swedish Spitsbergen expedition of 1861 a reconnaissance of the meridian-arc. The work was to be divided between two ships, the Æolus and the Magdalena. Chydenius on the Æolus was to lay out the northern part of the line and select the points of observation from the Seven Islands down to the south end of Hinloopen Strait, whilst Dunér on the Magdalena was to complete the preparations down Wybe Jans Water to the South Cape. Owing to unfavourable ice conditions the work could not be wholly accomplished in that year. Another Swedish expedition was accordingly sent out in 1864, under Nordenskiöld’s leadership, with Dunér to pay special attention to the geognostic observations. The result of these efforts was the suggestion of three different meridian-arcs: (1) along the west coast from South Cape to Vogelsang Island; (2) down the middle of the island by way of Wijde Bay, Ice Fjord, Bell Sound, and Horn Sound; (3) from Ross Island (north of the Seven Islands) to the South Cape by way of the east coast, Hinloopen Strait, and North-East Land. The third of these was the line recommended. It has, however, never been run, because the sea east of Spitsbergen is seldom easily navigable and the number of fine days are few. Moreover, in order to link together the triangles set out in Wybe Jans Water with those of Hinloopen Strait, observations must be made from a high hill in the midst of Garwood Land close to the furthest point reached by us this year from Klaas Billen Bay. Professor Nordenskiöld himself informed me that the existence of a hill commanding the necessary distant views had been to him doubtful, though he believed that they had identified as one and the same the apparently highest point of a range of mountains seen from three different points near the east coast (Svanberg, the White Mountain, and Mount Lovén). That such a mountain does in fact exist (and even more than one) was discovered and proved by us this year. The surpassing eminence of Horn Sunds Tind, dominating as it does the whole southern region of Spitsbergen, visible from the west coasts of Edges Land and Barents Land, and easily recognisable when and whence soever seen, indicated its summit as the best point for observations but the mountain was believed to be inaccessible. It was also believed that other useful mountain peaks might exist in the interior of the south part of the island between Horn Sound and Ice Fjord, by use of which as trigonometrical stations the necessity of visiting ice-blocked Wybe Jans Water might be avoided. One of the minor purposes of Herr Gustaf Nordenskiöld’s expedition of 1890 was to pay attention to these matters. He accordingly landed in Horn Sound and made a rapid journey across the glaciers and mountains between that point and the so-called Recherche Bay in Bell Sound.[13] He concluded that Horn Sunds Tind and the mountains of similar structure north of Horn Sound were inaccessible, and therefore could not be used as trigonometrical stations. Our discovery that Horn Sunds Tind is probably visible from the Three Crowns added greatly to its importance as a possible trigonometrical station. Thus it was now become a matter of unusual interest to discover a way to its summit.

An easy ascent up a snow incline brought us to the rocks of the little peak in which the west arête of Mount Hedgehog has its lower termination. They are broken rocks, lying at a steep angle. Deep, new, hard-frozen snow filled up their interstices and made the ascent very laborious, though quite easy. From the top of the little peak we looked abroad over the sea of cloud, beneath which we knew the ocean must lie, though no trace of it was visible to the remotest horizon. The surface of cloud was generally level but undulating, the crests of its motionless waves dyed pink by the midnight sun, the troughs filled with blue shadows. Straight ahead rose the steep splintered rock-ridge to the desired summit. On our right of it stretched up a broad ice-couloir, narrowing above to a snow-saddle close below the peak, and broadening below to Hedgehog Glacier, which flows almost due south to the sea, and along whose left bank lie the row of lesser peaks forming the continuation of Horn Sunds Tind. Last year Garwood led his party up this couloir, keeping close to the rocks of the arête by its right (north) side. There was no better way, so we went down to the col east of our little peak, and attacked the snow-slope beyond, Garwood leading now and throughout the ascent.

I was astonished, on approaching the couloir, to hear the mountain, as it were, singing over all its precipitous face. The cause of the sound was not apparent; it resembled the noise of waterfalls. The bonds of frost were, however, strong upon the mountain and must have held it for many days in a thawless grip, so that I could not believe there was any water to fall. Once in the couloir the mystery was explained. The sound arose from a cascade of fragments of ice, varying in size from a nut to a hen’s egg. We soon found out their cause and whence they came. Fine snow crystals formed in upper regions of the air, so different from the large flakes of lower levels, had been flung by the gale upon the crags. Hour after hour and doubtless day after day the bombardment continued. The flying icy dust clung to the rocks, and, being constantly added to, built itself up into feathery icicles pointing towards the wind. Where there had been a constant eddy it was shown by the changed direction of the icicles. They were only an inch or two long low down, but the higher we climbed the larger we found them to be, till near the top they became splendid plumes eighteen inches long or more and of the loveliest forms, like ostrich-feathers glittering with diamond dust. It was these icicles, detached from above by the leverage of their overgrown length, and smashed into smaller fragments as they fell, that filled the air with the sibilant, rushing sound which seemed like the noise of many waters. Throughout the ascent we had to run the gauntlet of these missiles, and were often hit, and hit hard, but never so severely that it mattered. They were not big enough to knock us out of our steps, whilst, once they had taken their first bound from the rocks, they kept close to the slope, so that they seldom flew by at a level higher than our waists.

Last year Garwood had escaped this particular annoyance, but instead had found the couloir in a rotten condition with soft snow lying upon ice, so that he had to cut steps through the snow into the ice from the very start. This year, the snow being hard-frozen, step-cutting did not commence till some way further up. Garwood started with hopes that much of it might be avoided by scrambling up the rocks of the arête, but the ice-covering on them rendered that impracticable, or, at the least, highly dangerous. Across the foot of the couloir stretched two of the inevitable deep crevasses or bergschrunds which every couloir boasts. Under the conditions they were, of course, well bridged, and presented no difficulty. Bonds of frost likewise held the rocks together, so that not a stone fell across the route of our ascent. In warm weather, and especially after midday, falling stones must be very common here, nor do I see how they can be avoided, for they rake every possible line of ascent.