(a) Event 12/12A

Most of the first half of the season was spent on the Taylor Glacier. This glacier is fed by the polar plateau and stretches about 80 km to Lake Bonney. From the Lower Finger Mountain icefall down there is virtually no permanent snow covering the ice. Virtually continuous snow cover exists between the two icefalls near Finger Mountain but above the upper icefall snow cover is intermittent. Bare ice continues to west of Depot Nunatak. US Navy aerial photos indicate that these conditions are much the same every summer.

Sledge travel is easy on the ablation dimpled bare ice and also on the virtually sastrugi free snow. Some slight crevassing near Cavendish Rocks and other places near the glacier sides provides rough going, but most routes up and down glacier completely avoid these. Crevasses become more of a problem above the upper Finger Mountain icefall. These were very obvious and generally well bridged in mid November 1976.

Route finding on the glacier is fairly obvious. Scott, in "The Voyage of the Discovery" states the importance of taking wide sweeps around corners and this was found to be true. Routes can generally avoid steepish slopes. Getting on and off the glacier was almost always easy although aerial photos were used a lot to find the easy places. The glacier margin is very steep in many places, and ropes were used occasionally.

Event 12A sledged between Mt. Morning and Mt. Discovery and the Koettlitz Glacier. Aerial photos were used to help choose the route, which was fairly obvious on them. Several areas of crevasses were negotiated with no problems. Most of the route is snow-covered, and much sastrugi, up to 1 metre high, though generally less than 0.3 metres high was encountered. Some small areas of soft snow were met on the way up Mt. Discovery. The descent off Mt. Discovery was very steep in three places where the toboggan and sledge had to be belayed. Travel beside the Koettlitz Glacier gave a few problems with meltwater. However the toboggan was easily able to negotiate a 1.5 m wide by 0.4 m deep meltstream.