Memories Of Hardship

Cape Evans hut itself is big (25ft. × 50ft.), and was set out in navy style by Scott with a distinction between the wardroom and the men's quarters. Twenty-live men occupied the hut 1910-13, while only 10 occupied it from the 1915-17 party. In the gravel beach on the north side of the hut two anchors are embedded to which (he "S.S. Aurora" was tied when she was unloading stores for the 1915-17 party. Unfortunately a blizzard sprang up and swept the ship out to sea, without any of the main depot stores, sledging equipment and winter clothing, having been landed. The men faced a rigorous winter. though they managed to faithfully lay their depots, despite great hardship and starvation, in the same fashion as Hillary did for Fuchs. Three men, however, died in the struggle for survival and, as it turned out, Shackleton never had the opportunity to use the depots, as his ship was crushed in the Weddell Sea ice.

Cape Evans itself Is a featureless promontary which contains several fresh water lakes, and Is a favourite resting place for skua gulls. Above the cape, and along the edge of the Banne Glacier draining from Mt. Erebus, is a morainic ramp from which we obtained magnificent views across McMurdo Sound to the Western Peaks 50 miles away, and to the south to Hut Point and 9,000ft. Mt. Discovery. All the time 13,000ft. Mt. Erebus is an imposing sight behind the camp, with a plume of smoke issuing from its snowy, volcanic cone, and its wide, tumbling glaciers suddenly terminating in sheer 200ft. cliffs as they drop into the sea ice.