Number in series 59; Year of publication 1966 - Fell and Rock ...

Roger Tufft 217
enable us to get ashore without difficulty. However, after some
search, we found a way for our sledge and were soon camped
on the mainland. Two hours later we returned with the
second sledge—our first difficulty had been negotiated.
Determined to avoid the heat of the previous day, we rose
at midnight and set off with a light load to reconnoitre a route
which we hoped would take us onto a glacier which from sea
level seemed to give an easy road to the ice-cap. We had
timed our arrival well—there was still sufficient snow at sea
level to start sledging immediately instead of having to backpack
our loads for the first thousand feet as we had feared.
We were further cheered by finding a pipe and some chewing
gum wrappers—sure signs that we were on a sledge route.
That day, aided by a frozen lake, we relayed our load to a
moraine at 500 feet—the last hour in sweltering heat from
which we were all glad to escape. Nevertheless, we were now
camped beside the glacier and there seemed no obstacle to
prevent us reaching the ice-cap proper. During the next two
nights we moved all equipment to a rock outcrop at 3,000 feet.
This was to be our jumping off camp for the ice-cap crossing.
One sledge was abandoned and all surplus packing discarded.
From here we would start with 45 days' food and a sledge
loaded to 700 lb.
We started our crossing on 25th June. From the first the
going was heavy and we continually broke through the surface
crust. One of us would push from the rear of the sledge whilst
the other three pulled on skis. We had not brought skins but
improvised by lying strands of climbing rope around the ski.
Pulling thus was a slow business and we were struggling to
average 5 miles a day instead of the ten we had planned.
These were dull, depressing days and we were forced to
march many hours each day in an effort to achieve a reasonable
distance. On 3rd July we were forced to lie up by continuous
rain which lasted some 36 hours. Depressing though
this was, we were heartened by the fact that the rain compacted
the surface and left an ideal sledging crust. Discarding
our rope 'skins', we set off and were soon averaging 3 m.p.h.
During the next 10 days, we slowly ate into the distance until
we had covered over 200 miles.
These days followed a regular and monotonous pattern.
We set off about 8 p.m. and sledged throughout the night.
There was no perceptible uphill gradient and for hour after
hour we moved over a smooth, level surface. The sun dipped