Safety Camp. They started on
September 9 and camped on the sea-ice beyond Cape Armitage that night,
the minimum temperature being -45 deg.. They dug out Safety Camp next
morning, and marched on towards Corner Camp. The minimum that night was
-62.3 deg.. The next evening they made their night camp as a blizzard was
coming up, the temperature at the same time being -34.5 deg. and minimum for
the night -40 deg.. This is an extremely low temperature for a blizzard. They
made a start in a very cold wind the next afternoon (September 12) and
camped at 8.30 P.M. That night was bitterly cold and they found that the
minimum showed -73.3 deg. for that night. Evans reports adversely on the use
of the eider-down bag and inner tent, but here none of our Winter Journey
men would agree with him.[172] Most of September 13th was spent in
digging out Corner Camp which they left at 5 P.M., intending to travel
back to Hut Point without stopping except for meals. They marched all
through that night with two halts for meals and arrived at Hut Point at 3
P.M. on September 14, having covered a distance of 34.6 statute miles.
They reached Cape Evans the following day after an absence of 61/2
days.[173]

During this journey Forde got his hand badly frost-bitten which
necessitated his return in the Terra Nova in March 1912. He owed a good
deal to the skilful treatment Atkinson gave it.

Wilson was still looking grey and drawn some days, and I was not too fit,
but Bowers was indefatigable. Soon after we got in from Cape Crozier he
heard that Scott was going over to the Western Mountains: somehow or
other he persuaded Scott to take him, and they started with Seaman Evans
and Simpson on September 15 on what Scott calls "a remarkably pleasant
and instructive little spring journey,"[174] and what Bowers called a
jolly picnic.

This picnic started from the hut in a -40 deg. temperature, dragging 180 lbs.
per man, mainly composed of stores for the geological party of the
summer. They penetrated as far north as Dunlop Island and turned back
from there on September 24, reaching Cape Evans on September 29, marching
twenty-one miles (statute) into a blizzard wind with occasional storms of
drift and a temperature of -16 deg.: and they marched a little too long; for
a storm of drift came against them and they had to camp. It is never very
easy pitching a tent on sea-ice because there is not very much snow on
the ice: on this occasion it was only after they