OSBORNE GLACIER AND PRETENDER PASS
Explorers in most parts of the world are able to sketch general maps
of large areas, which they may have traversed only along a single
line of route. Undulating country intersected by prominent waterways
and rising at considerable intervals to prominent altitudes can be
mapped in a sketchy fashion by the rapidest traveller, if skilled. A
few compass bearings fix the position of prominent points; positions,
astronomically determined from time to time as opportunity arises,
clamp the whole together and enable it to be adjusted on the proper
part of the globe; whilst, as for details, who cares about them in a
new country? The mountain explorer, however, that person most unpopular
with geographers, is faced by topographical problems of a far more
complicated character. His routes always lie along valleys, whose sides
cut off the distant view and whose bends often prevent him from looking
either ahead or back. When he climbs a peak, assuming him to have a
clear view, which is rare, he beholds a wide panorama, it is true, but,
save in the foreground, it consists of a throng of peaks, whose summits
alone are visible over intervening ridges. If, following tradition, he
laboriously fixes the position of some of them, it is lost labour, for
the mere dotting upon a map of the points of a lot of peaks tells a
geographer nothing. What he wants to know is the number and direction
of ranges, the position of watersheds, the relation of rivers to the
original earth-crinkles which determined their direction and in turn
are so remarkably modified by them. To make merely a sketch-map of a
considerable mountain area thus involves an amount of travel within it
beyond all comparison greater than that entailed by the exploration
of open country. The smaller the scale of the mountains, and the
closer they are packed together, the more frequently must the area be
traversed in different directions before a sketch-map of it can be made.
King James Land is an example of a region excessively difficult to
map. It is covered by a wonderful multitude of mountains, which may be
described in a general way as planted in ranges running from north-west
to south-east. Of these there are about six principal ones between the
King’s Highway and the Dead Man, and quantities more to the north.
The old-fashioned geographer would have been content to draw parallel
caterpillars on his map and so fill it up. But, as a matter of fact,
there are throngs of subsidiary ranges and crossing hollows, so that
the glacier, flowing down one valley, robs from its neighbour the
snow accumulated in its upper reservoir; and it is exactly in these
phenomena that the geographical interest of the region consists, for
they show how ice-denudation works, and the kind of modelling effect
which ice can produce on a land surface, an effect totally different in
kind from that fabled by home-staying geologists, with their imagined
excavating ice-streams.
Thus far we had only made acquaintance with one glacier-valley cutting
across the island from Kings Bay to Ice Fjord. We determined to look
into another, to the south, before turning northward to the Crowns
group. On July 31 we accordingly broke up camp, loaded the sledges,
and bade the men set off, down the way we had come, as far as Junction
Point, where they were to await our arrival. Garwood and I, in the
meantime, were to cross the range of hills at the south of our camp,
descend into the next valley, and return over the pass at its head,
which must of course give access to the snowfield of the southern
branch of Highway Glacier. Descending that we should come to Junction
Point.
It was another brilliant day, and so warm that the snow was softened
to an unusual depth. During or immediately after frost the surface
of _névé_ sparkles in sunlight as though sprinkled with countless
diamonds; but on warm days there are no diamonds, but only drops of
water, the surface crystals being melted. The forms and surfaces of
snow are thereby softened, and this softening effect is recognisable
even from great distances. At starting, the view over Ice Fjord
was clearer than ever, and we could distinguish Bunting Bluff, Fox
Peak, and other scenes of last year’s toils and delights. The work
immediately in hand was to ascend a long snow-slope, rising from
Highway Pass to a col about 200 feet higher in the range to the
south--a broad snow-saddle at the foot of a very fine peak, the ascent
of which from this side would be dangerous, for its whole face is
swept by ice-avalanches. Somewhere in the rocks of this peak are the
nesting-places of many birds, the chorus of whose voices was heard as a
faint hum. The new pass looked down upon the head of a large glacier,
and across it to an innumerable multitude of peaks, all shining in the
blaze of midday. At our feet was a secluded bay of this glacier. A
splendid ski-glissade landed us on its snowy floor, and we were soon
out on the main glacier, which swept down from the pass we were to
cross next. Halting at a convenient spot, we took stock of the view. It
was beautiful, of course--every view is beautiful in King James Land;
but its interest made me forget its beauty for a time. We expected to
find in this trough a glacier parallel to the Highway, and we did
find one, and a large one too, larger than the Highway, because fed by
several tributaries from the south; but to our surprise this glacier
did not flow in the expected direction, but due south for many miles,
and instead of ending in Ice Fjord, or on its shore, ran up against a
big mass of mountains and, bending round to the right or south-west,
disappeared from view. At the angle it received a wide tributary from
the north-east. This great glacier, in fact, empties itself into the
head of St. John’s Bay. As that bay was originally named Osborne’s
Inlet, after an early whaling skipper, we gave his name to this
glacier. Garwood, I believe, explains the twist of the mountains which
cause this deflection of the glacier as the result of a fault dying
out; but, lest I should unwillingly misrepresent his conclusions, I
leave him to describe them himself. The mountains near at hand to the
south were of beautiful forms, reminding us of well-known Swiss peaks,
Weisshorns, Gabelhorns, and so forth. There was much aqueous vapour
in the air, reducing its transparency and adding to the effects of
distance. The mottled sky cast a decorative patchwork of shadows on the
snow. Skeins of cloud were forming, and in the north the weather was
again threatening dark and evil things.
On us, however, toiling up the long, long slopes to the pass, coy as
are all the wide white passes in this land, the sun shone with painful
fierceness. It burned as it sometimes does on the high Alps, so that we
soon began to suffer from sun-headaches and parching thirst. Nowhere
was there a drop of water to be squeezed from the apparently sodden
snow. Having survey instruments and cameras to carry, we were sparely
provided with food. Hunger came to weaken us and double the apparent
length of the way. At last we were on the col, but the downward slope
was very gentle and the snow now became sticky, so that the ski would
not slide. We bore away to the right in search of a steeper incline
and struck blue ice covered with mere slush that even the ski sank
into. There were dry patches of it, too slippery to stand on; it was
a mere alternation of evils. Sometimes we stuck fast and sometimes
fell heavily. What was looked forward to as an easy and delightful
excursion became a most laborious day’s work. “This is your picnic,”
cried Garwood to me as he fell more than usually hard, “I hope you like
it.” But all things come to an end, and so did this march. Junction
Point appeared in sight, with a lake-basin between the branch glaciers
where they join, a basin similar to that at the foot of the Terrier,
and, like it, recently drained. The heavy ice, formed on its surface in
the winter, had been carried all over the neighbourhood by the momentum
of the escaping water, and now lay spread about, high and dry. With a
struggle and a scramble we passed round the head of the lake and came
in view of the men resting on the sledges. The unbelieving Svensen had
climbed a neighbouring eminence to look out. Nielsen informed us that
Svensen had been full of forebodings all day. They would never see us
again, he said. We were gone into the wilderness and would be engulfed;
as for them, when the provisions were finished they in their turn would
die of starvation. Fool that he was not to take his old woman’s advice
and stay at home where he was well off, instead of coming to this
snow-buried circle of the infernal regions! Camp was pitched on the
very tracks of our upward journey. Then the sky clouded over and the
wind rose. After one last look towards Kings Bay, reflecting the golden
west and framed by purple hills, we closed the tent-doors and rejoiced
to be “at home.”
The lovely weather re-established itself in the daylit night, so that,
when we awoke, sunshine lay abroad upon the glacier. Looking downward
we had on our right hand the dull slope of the Queens group, where a
smooth side glacier comes slanting down the midst of it from a col
whose existence had not been revealed till now. It was decided to
climb to this col for the purpose of making a closer investigation of
the structure of the group. The march accordingly began with a long
traversing descent of the main glacier to a point on its right bank
at the foot of the side glacier. It mischanced that the area to be
traversed was exactly the wettest belt of the whole basin. We skirted
it on the ascent; now we had to go right across it, and that too after
a series of fine melting days. The watery surface shone like a lake,
and did in fact consist of a succession of pools, communicating with
one another by slushy belts through which streams sluggishly meandered.
The reader must not conceive of the pools, streams, and snow as
corresponding to water and land, for the snow, even where it emerged,
was permeated with water like a saturated sponge. When the autumnal
frost masters a snow-bog and binds its errant molecules into a mass,
there is formed a solid, built up of ice-prisms, each about one inch
in diameter and as long as the bog was deep. Prismatic ice of this
kind, the product of the preceding winter, is frequently met with on
Spitsbergen glaciers. Its cause puzzled us greatly when first we came
upon it. With the motion of the glacier, the formation of crevasses,
and so forth, it often happens that the side pressure which held the
prisms together is removed. Their tendency is to thaw and separate
along their planes of junction. By this means are produced opening
sheaves of long ice-crystals, most beautiful to look upon. I have
found them in quantities a foot or more long, opening out “like quills
upon a fretful porcupine.” Where there is no relaxation of lateral
pressure, the crystals are held together; but they form a fabric of
weak cohesion, and when you tread upon it your foot crunches in, almost
as far as into snow.
Across this uncomfortable region we travelled for hours. Sometimes
there were deep channels to cross; rarely a dry, hard patch intervened;
most of the time there was slush of different consistencies which
we had to push through. The sledges seemed to grow heavier and more
resistant every hour. One of them, of which the runners were not
shod with metal, came to grief at a stream-gully, where it pitched
on its nose and smashed a runner. At last the water was left behind
and dry ice gained. At the foot of a long, downward slope we found a
big, frozen lake that had not yet burst the bonds imposed on it by
the previous winter; crossing its rough surface, we climbed on to the
moraine beyond, at the foot of the side glacier now to be ascended. The
stone _débris_ of dolomite rock, covering the lower part of the slope,
were dotted about with various common plants, _Dryas octapetala_,
_Saxifraga oppositifolia_, arctic poppy, and so forth, the same that
grow in the interior wherever there is any soil to accommodate them. Of
the ascent little need be said. We shall not soon forget it. The slope
was the steepest encountered by the sledges. Our forces just sufficed
to raise them, but there was nothing to spare. We arrived at the level
top exhausted. Camp was pitched on the col, a wide snow-saddle between
the Queen (4060 ft.) and an unimportant but commanding buttress peak.
To the latter I hurried, desirous of making observations while the
view was clear, for sea-mists had been observed crawling up both from
Kings and English bays, and uniting on the pass near Mount Nielsen.
There is nothing more beautiful than a sea-fog beheld from above when
the sun shines upon it. By contrast its brilliant metallic whiteness
makes purest snow grey. Then it moves so beautifully, gliding inland
and putting out arms before it or casting off islands that wander
away at their own sweet will. Enchanting to look upon are these
sea-fairies, save to the victim to their embraces. Once inveigled, all
their beauty vanishes, for within they are cold, cheerless, and grey,
like the depths whence they spring. But to-day they were not destined
to advance far. They came up boldly a while, then faltered and turned
back, remaining thenceforward among the seracs and crevasses, except
a few rambling outliers that floated away over the glacier or hovered
as bright islands in hollows of the surface. Faint beds of variously
transparent vapour, horizontally stratified, barred across the fine
range of craggy mountains and their glacier cascades that filled the
space between Cross Bay and the Crowns Glacier, a mountain group with
an exceptionally fine skyline. We were encamped at that level of
the glacier which may be described as the singing level, where water
trickles all about, tinkling in tiny ice-cracks, rippling in rivulets,
roaring in _moulins_, and humming in the faint base of the remoter
torrents. It is only on slopes of a reasonable inclination that these
sounds arise. The flat snowbogs of our morning traverse were soundless.
Late in the evening, the weather being perfectly re-established, I
returned alone to camp. It was an enchanted hour. On one hand, as I sat
in the tent-door, facing the sunshine and the view, was the fine peak
we named Pretender, rising above the battlement-ridge of the western
Queen. On the other hand was a lower hill, shutting off the distance
and turning toward me a splendid precipice of rock. Between them was
the opening through which the glacier, falling away from my standpoint,
joined the apparently boundless expanse of the Crowns Glacier. Beyond
were beautiful hills with the silver mist kissing their feet, and,
above them in the clear sky, a few wisps of cloud. No breath of air
moved, but falling waters sang from near and far, and a fulmar’s whirr
occasionally broke the stillness. At such times Nature gathers a man
into herself, transforming his self-consciousness into a consciousness
of her. All the forms and colours of the landscape sink into his
heart like the expression of a great personality, whereof he himself
is a portion. Ceasing to think, while Nature addresses him through
every sense, he receives direct impressions from her. In this kind of
_nirvana_ the passage of time is forgotten, and as near an approach to
bliss is experienced as this world is capable of supplying.
The passing hours, whereof some were devoted to sleep, witnessed the
establishment of the weather’s perfection. Heights and depths were
cloudlessly clear, save low down over the bay, where the bright mist
stretched like a carpet far out to sea. Buckling on my snowshoes, I
slid forth down the slope, which curved over so steeply at the top that
its foot was hidden by the bulge. The exhilaration of that rush through
the crisp air is yet quick in remembrance. The cliffs on either hand,
glorious battlemented walls of dolomite, seemed to be growing as we
descended the side-glacier, whose exit, when we came to it, proved to
be closed across by a rampart of moraine. Over this moraine, at a later
hour, the sledges had to be carried to the ice of the extreme left
margin of the Crowns Glacier, up which we were now to advance. There
was no threat of serious impediment for a mile or so, but unexpected
obstacles always lie in wait--the seasoning salt of the delight of
exploration. A hundred yards on we were brought up sharply by a deep,
impassable ice-gully or water-channel, stretching away into the glacier
on the left and coming out of the moraine. We turned along its bank
and came into the angle where an equally impassable tributary channel
branched into it. There was nothing to be done but follow this backward
to an overhanging place, cross it there, and then carry the sledges
in turn, about a quarter of a mile over moraine, to a point where the
other channel fortunately proved traversable. Hummocky ice succeeded
for the rest of the march, beneath the grand cliffs of the Pretender
(3480 ft.). Two great corries cut into these cliffs, the second of them
starting exactly beneath the summit of the peak. We camped at a safe
distance below its narrow mouth, beyond the range of frequent volleys
of falling stones.
From this point to the base camp would be one long day’s march for
men with sledges. We had three and a half days’ provisions left. We
could therefore only spare two and a half days for exploration of
the neighbourhood. That was not enough, so we sent the two men away
with empty sacks to fetch more stores. There was plenty of work to be
done in the neighbourhood, for the Pretender’s cliff disclosed all
the mysteries of the great fault, which, cutting right across the
country, approximately along the line of the King’s Highway, divides
the uncontorted, almost horizontally stratified plateau-region of the
north from the series of ranges of splintered peaks extending southward
to the Dead Man. Accurate observation and careful mapping were,
therefore, essential.
After lunch, when the men were gone away, we sat on a sledge in the
sunshine, with our coats off, rejoicing in life. The glacier was
working and cracking about us unceasingly; stones kept toppling from
the moraine close by. High aloft rose the Pretender’s cliff, 2000 feet,
almost sheer. It is the most beautifully coloured cliff I ever saw. For
foundations it has a contorted mass of ruddy archæan rocks, brilliantly
adorned with splashes of golden lichen, picked out with grass-grown
ledges. Here, as all along the mountain’s face, are the nesting-places
of countless birds. The fulmar petrels choose the lower edges; some,
as we found, only just beyond reach of a man’s hand. The wall below
them is generally overhanging, for the birds know exactly the limits
of a fox’s climbing powers, and they avoid places accessible to him.
Higher up are the homes of the little auks, who sit close together
in rows, sunning their white bosoms. On the top of every jutting
pinnacle of rock a glaucous gull keeps watch, with his own nest near
at hand, ready to dive into any unprotected nest, or to pounce on any
unfortunate bird that falls a victim to disease. The little auks always
fly together in companies, I suppose for mutual protection. There
is continual warfare between them and the gulls, but it seems to be
carried on in accordance with some accepted law, for though any stray
auklet or fallen fledgling is fair game for a gull, he does not seem
to attack individual auks sitting near their nests. Indeed, we often
saw auks and glaucous gulls sitting close together on the same ledge,
when it would have been easy for the gull to have snapped up one of his
small neighbours. This, however, must be illegal. We never saw such a
crime committed, and the auks evidently felt confident of the gull’s
correct behaviour. The nests are not placed in the gullies where stones
habitually fall. No matter how big stone-avalanches may come down the
usual ruts, the birds watch them unconcerned. But when a stray stone
fell down the cliff in an exceptional direction, the birds flew out
in their hundreds and thousands, filling the air with protests, the
fulmars swooping around, the little auks darting forth horizontally at
a higher level straight out and back again, whilst the glaucous gulls
more leisurely floated away on confident wing, their white plumage
seeming scarcely more solid than the glowing air which sustained their
poise.
Above the ancient foundation rocks of the mountain comes a bed of
green sandstone, above this a dark red bed, the same which forms the
substance of all the Crowns group, except their caps. On the top of
the sandstone, whose face has a sloping profile, is planted the summit
cap of pink dolomite, cut off on this side in a plumb-vertical cliff
horizontally stratified. High aloft in the wonderful air this rose-pink
cliff, with its level lines of orange and other tones, like courses of
masonry, was an object of rarest beauty, as all who know the Dolomites
of Tirol can realise; but the sharp clear atmosphere of the Alps must
yield the palm to the soft mellow arctic air, in which Spitsbergen’s
mountains almost seem to float. Rose-pink aloft, then purple-red, then
green, and finally red again splashed with orange and green: such was
the chord of colour presented by this lovely mountain-face between the
blue sky and the white glacier foreground.
A funnel-shaped gully, with its upper edge at the foot of the dolomite
cliff and the foot of its couloir ending on the glacier, was exactly
behind our camp. Snow-slopes at its head were melting fast in the sun,
so that a cascade laughed aloud all down the height of it. Stones were
continually loosened by the melting; each started others in its fall,
so that the rattle of tumbling rocks, now and again swollen by the roar
of some big stone avalanche, kept the air in ceaseless vibration.
I made two expeditions out upon the glacier in different directions for
the purpose of investigating its character at its most energetic part,
just below the summer snowline. It was a maze of crevasses throughout
its entire breadth and all the way down from the edge of the _névé_
to the sea. A few traversable lines of route could be found, either
parallel to and between the crevasses, or across them, where, owing to
a change of slope in the bed, the lips of the crevasses were brought
together within striding range. At best the surface was very bumpy,
and I foresaw a bad time coming for the sledges. The ice phenomena
would have struck any Alpine climber as curious. Every year there are
added, even to the central and crevassed portion of an arctic glacier,
accumulations of ice formed by the thawing and re-freezing of the
winter snow, and these patchwork additions take the most unexpected
forms. For instance, a crevasse that happens to be full of water will
be roofed over with ice a few feet thick. If the rest of the water is
then drained off a tunnel is formed, across which again crevasses may
open. We found two or three such tunnels, whose roofs had been squeezed
up into barrel-vaults. One of them was still full of water, but the
roof had been raised high above it by pressure, and a doorway had been
formed by the fall of a portion of the arch. I climbed into this grotto
and stood on a ledge. Sunlight glimmered through the crystal roof;
the walls were white; for floor there were the indigo-blue depths of
the water. This was but one of the strange and beautiful objects that
the glacier offered to the wanderer’s admiration. Near the foot of
the Pretender a blood-red river, dyed with the dust of the falling
sandstones, flowed in a deep white channel cut into the glacier. It
soon came to the crevasse that was its fate and plunged down the fatal
_moulin_. That was close to camp. Of course, we called it the Moulin
Rouge!
After wandering far I returned home for the night, meeting Garwood on
the way. Our backs were to the boundless snowfields; before us the
Pretender’s mighty cliff shone warm under the mellow midnight sun, pink
high aloft, crimson and green at lower levels, and striped blood-red
where the water was pouring down. The white-mounded glacier was mottled
over with blue shadows. Perfect weather, perfect scenery, perfect
health--what more could we desire?