safety.

On December 3 we roused out at 2.30 A.M. It was thick and snowy. As we
breakfasted the blizzard started from the south-east, and was soon
blowing force 9, a full gale, with heavy drift. "The strongest wind I
have known here in summer."[210] It was impossible to start, but we
turned out and made up the pony walls in heavy drift, one of them being
blown down three times. By 1.30 P.M. the sun was shining, and the land
was clear. We started at 2, with what we thought was Mount Hope showing
up ahead, but soon great snow-clouds were banking up and in two hours we
were walking in a deep gloom which made it difficult to find the track
made by the man-hauling party ahead. By the time we reached the cairn,
which was always built at the end of the first four miles, it was blowing
hard from the N.N.W. of all the unlikely quarters of the compass. Bowers
and Scott were on ski.

"I put on my windproof blouse and nosed out the track for two miles, when
we suddenly came upon the tent of the leading party. They had camped
owing to the difficulty of steering a course in such thick weather. The
ponies, however, with the wind abaft the beam were going along
splendidly, and Scott thought it worth while to shove on. We therefore
carried on another four miles, making ten in all, a good half march,
before we camped. On ski it was simply ripping, except for the inability
to see anything at all. With the wind behind, and the good sliding
surface made by the wind-hardened snow, one fairly slithered along.
Camping was less pleasant as it was blowing a gale by that time. We are
all in our bags again now, with a good hot meal inside one, and blow high
or blow low one might be in a worse place than a reindeer bag."[211]

It was all right for the people on ski (and this in itself gave us a
certain sense of grievance), but things had not been so easy with the
ponies, who were sinking very deeply in places, while we ourselves were
sinking well over our ankles. This day we began to cross the great
undulations in the Barrier, with the crests some mile apart, which here
mark the approach to the land. We had built the walls to the north of the
ponies on camping, because the wind was from that direction, but by
breakfast on December 4 it was blowing a thick blizzard from the
south-east. We began to feel bewildered by these extraordinary weather
changes, and not a little exasperated too. Again we could not march, and
again we had to dig out the sled