I9II] FIRST TRIP TO HUT POINT 83 



the route to Cape Royds would be quite easy. As we topped 

 the last rise we saw Taylor and Wright some way ahead on the 

 slope; they had come up by a different route. Evidently they 

 are bound for the same goal. 



I returned to camp, and after lunch Meares and I took a 

 sledge and nine dogs over the Cape to the sea ice on the south 

 side and started for Hut Point. We took a little provision 

 and a cooker and our sleeping-bags. Meares had found a way 

 over the Cape which was on snow all the way except about 100 

 yards. The dogs pulled well, and we went towards the Glacier 

 Tongue at a brisk pace; found m.uch of the ice uncovered. 

 Towards the Glacier Tongue there were some heaps of snow 

 much wind blown. As we rose the glacier we saw the Nimrod 

 depot some way to the right and made for it. We found a 

 good deal of compressed fodder and boxes of maize, but no 

 grain crushed as expected. The open water was practically up 

 to the Glacier Tongue. 



We descended by an easy slope % mile from the end of 

 the Glacier Tongue, but found ourselves cut off by an open 

 crack some 15 feet across and had to get on the glacier again 

 and go some ^ mile farther in. We came to a second crack, 

 but avoided it by skirting to the west. From this point we 

 had an easy run without difficulty to Hut Point. There was a 

 small pool of open water and a longish crack off Hut Point. 

 I got my feet very wet crossing the latter. We passed hundreds 

 of seals at the various cracks. 



On the arrival at the hut to my chagrin we found it filled 

 with snow. Shackleton reported that the door had been forced 

 by the wind, but that he had made an entrance by the window 

 and found shelter inside — other members of his party used it 

 for shelter. But they actually went away and left the window 

 (which they had forced) open; as a result, nearly the whole 

 of the interior of the hut is filled with hard icy snow, and it is 

 now impossible to find shelter inside. 



Meares and I were able to clamber over the snow to some 

 extent and to examine the neat pile of cases in the middle, but 

 they will take m.uch digging out. We got some asbestos sheeting 

 from the magnetic hut and made the best shelter we could to 

 boil our cocoa. 



There was something too depressing in finding the old hut 



