There could be no turning back now, so we unroped and slid in
the fashion of youthful days. When we stopped on a snow-bank at the
foot of the slope we found that we had descended at least 900 ft. in
two or three minutes. We looked back and saw the grey fingers of the
fog appearing on the ridge, as though reaching after the intruders into
untrodden wilds. But we had escaped.
The country to the east was an ascending snow upland dividing the
glaciers of the north coast from the outfalls of the south. We had seen
from the top that our course lay between two huge masses of crevasses,
and we thought that the road ahead lay clear. This belief and the
increasing cold made us abandon the idea of camping. We had another
meal at 6 p.m. A little breeze made cooking difficult in spite of the
shelter provided for the cooker by a hole. Crean was the cook, and
Worsley and I lay on the snow to windward of the lamp so as to break
the wind with our bodies. The meal over, we started up the long, gentle
ascent. Night was upon us, and for an hour we plodded along in almost
complete darkness, watching warily for signs of crevasses. Then about
8 p.m. a glow which we had seen behind the jagged peaks resolved itself
into the full moon, which rose ahead of us and made a silver pathway
for our feet.
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