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 nth 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 I o'clock in the morning of 

 the 1 2th, to find the weather so magnificent that I roused all 



