OHYAT - Extreme Tobogganing
Jan. 13th, 2012 07:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinThe Second Returning Party had gotten off course over the three preceding days – the weather had been bad but they had to keep going so they could reach the depot on time and not run out of food. When they did finally see where they were, ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY, it was at the top of the Shackleton Ice Falls, a steep and jumbled-up area of crevassed ice where the Polar Plateau spills into the Beardmore Glacier.
They guided the sledge over the slippery ice, one man leading and two holding the sledge back to keep it from running away down the slope. "We encountered fall after fall, bruises, cuts, and abrasions were sustained, but we vied with one another in bringing all our grit and patience to bear; scarcely a complaint was heard, although one or other of us would be driven almost sick with pain as the sledge cannoned into this or that man's heel with a thud that made the victim clench his teeth to avoid crying out." (Evans) Eventually they came to a part that was too steep even to pick their way down, so Teddy proposed a daring idea. Stop fighting gravity and use it instead: hop on the sledge and toboggan down the ice falls!
To reach the glacier we were faced with two alternatives: either to march right round the icefalls, as we had done coming south, and thus waste three whole days, or to take our lives in our hands and attempt to get the sledge slap over the falls. This would mean facing tremendous drops, which might end in a catastrophe. The discussion was very short-lived, and with rather a sinking feeling the descent of the great ice falls was commenced. We packed our ski on the sledge, attached spiked crampons to our finnesko, and guided the sledge through the maze of hummocks and crevasses.– Teddy Evans, South With Scott
They guided the sledge over the slippery ice, one man leading and two holding the sledge back to keep it from running away down the slope. "We encountered fall after fall, bruises, cuts, and abrasions were sustained, but we vied with one another in bringing all our grit and patience to bear; scarcely a complaint was heard, although one or other of us would be driven almost sick with pain as the sledge cannoned into this or that man's heel with a thud that made the victim clench his teeth to avoid crying out." (Evans) Eventually they came to a part that was too steep even to pick their way down, so Teddy proposed a daring idea. Stop fighting gravity and use it instead: hop on the sledge and toboggan down the ice falls!
None of us can ever forget that exciting descent. The speed of the sledge at one point must have been 60 miles an hour. We glissaded down a steep blue ice slope; to brake was impossible, for the sledge had taken charge. One or other of us may have attempted to check the sledge with his foot, but to stop it in any way would have meant a broken leg. We held on for our lives, lying face downwards on the sledge. Suddenly it seemed to spring into the air, we had left the ice and shot over one yawning crevasse before we had known of its existence almost—I do not imagine we were more than a second in the air, but in that brief space of time I looked at Crean, who raised his eyebrows as if to say, "What next!" Then we crashed on to the ice ridge beyond this crevasse, the sledge capsized and rolled over and over, dragging us three with it until it came to a standstill.
How we ever escaped entirely uninjured is beyond me to explain. When we had recovered our breath we examined ourselves and our sledge. One of my ski-sticks had caught on a piece of ice during our headlong flight and torn itself from the sledge. It rolled into the great blue-black chasm over which we had come, and its fate made me feel quite cold when I thought of what might have happened to us. When my heart had stopped beating so rapidly from fright, and I had recovered enough to look round, I realised that we were practically back on the Beardmore again, and that our bold escapade had saved us three days' solid foot slogging and that amount of food. So we pitched our little tent, had a good filling meal, and then, delighted with our progress, we marched on until 8 p.m. That night in our sleeping-bags we felt like three bruised pears, but being in pretty hard condition in those days, our bruises and slight cuts in no way kept us from hours of perfect, contented slumber.
