242 SCOTT’S LAST EXPEDITION [DecEMBER 
11.30 A.M. we were camped in the position from which I had 
decided to make the final ascent. After discussion with Deben- 
ham, I selected Gran, Abbott, and Hooper to accompany me to 
the top, leaving Debenham, who had slight mountain sickness, 
to continue his survey, and Dickason, who was feeling the height 
more than the other two men, to help him. 
From here we were taking a single camping equipment— 
tent and poles, bags, inside cooker, primus, oil, and four days’ 
provisions on full ration, and after this had been apportioned 
each man was permitted to take a reasonable amount of personal 
gear. All hands dragged the packs on the sledge some distance 
up the first snow slope, but the gradient soon became so steep that 
we were obliged to anchor the sledge with ice axes and assume 
our packs, while Debenham and Dickason tobogganed back to 
camp on the sledge. 
By climbing about a hundred feet at a time and taking long 
spells we were able to make steady if slow progress up the rock 
ridges, which were here nearly continuous as far as the rim of 
the second crater. The only difficult bits to negotiate were when 
we were obliged to cross the snow-slopes from ridge to ridge, and 
these were only dangerous because, owing to scarcity of ice axes, 
the four of us were able to have but three between us, and I was 
never sure where the fourth man would fetch up if he slipped. 
This necessitated step cutting and slowed us up considerably, and 
it was not until three hours and a half after we had left the sledge 
that we reached the rim and saw the second crater stretching out 
in front of us. 
Our first care was to select a good site for our camp, and 
after that was pitched to cook our evening meal and turn in. 
The clouds prevented our getting a view of the active crater and 
no photographs were possible. ‘The only effect the height had 
on us as yet was to cause sleeplessness and a slight shortness of 
breath, but we were already beginning to experience some dis- 
comfort from the low temperatures, and the whole time we re- 
mained at or above this elevation the mercury remained obsti- 
nately below — 10° F., and at one time registered — 30° F. 
The 11th saw us still shrouded in cloud and, except for a 
short walk in the immediate neighbourhood of the camp, we got 
nothing done; but Gran woke me at 1 o’clock in the morning of 
the 12th, to find the weather so magnificent that I roused all 
