WHITE VALLEY OF DEATH

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 819, 13 November 1929, Page 9

WHITE VALLEY OF DEATH

MOANING ICE CROSSED BY BYRD PARTY FALSE STEP MEANT DOOM L'y RUSSELL OWEN -■ ' . .: mpa and the St. Lc s ”Posti Dispatch.” All rights for publication , reserved throughout the world. W ireless l to the ‘ New York Times.’* Received D a.m. BAY' OF WHALES, Monday. Dr. Lawrence Gould’s geological : party, headed for the Queen Maud Range, arrived on Saturday at Depot i * No. 2, which is 80 degrees 10 minutes ; • south. Soft snow and poor visibility | ‘ made the going terribly hard for two days. Four grimy-faced, bewhiskered 3 men came up the slope to the camp yesterday, having travelled more than ! v , 400 miles oil the Barrier, crossing ! twice an area, of crevasses, holes and i „ | haycocks so dangerous that it echoed i beneath their feet, and roared and ! 3 | growled around them while they slept. 3 They were the members of the south- . ! ern supporting party, a little thinner . j than when they left, but in perfect 1 | condition. t | Arthur Walden’s grizzled grey whis--1 j kers made him appear even more a j trail veteran than he is. Braatlien’s . beard was curled in every direction, '; and the faces of Bursey and Joe De f , Ganahl were burned by the sun, and 2 I on one of Joe’s cheeks was a round 1 | blistered spot where he had' been 3 ! frozen. ESCAPE FROM DEATH ■■j They gave a graphic description of ; one narrow escape from death. A valley stretched ahead of them, smooth and Inviting, but suddenly it rang hollow. They halted and tapped it everywhere. It seemed a wide, level roof of snow over some cavern, the extent of which taxed their imagination. They felt their way around the edge of it, hardly believing that it could be so lavge. It xvas as big as a city j block. This whole covering sheet 1 w r as apparently held up by snow pil- ! lars somewhere, or perhaps the avails j between tremendously wide crevasses. They worked their way around the western edge of it, dodging between , the haycocks, taking their sledges over ’ the narrow ledges running between deep chasms and holes, frequently on , a slope from which they might have slipped into the depths below them. . At one point, two open crevasses came ’ together before them in the shape of 1 an arrow, and on the point, where it was bridged by the snow, they went a across gingerly. Many of these crev- ” asses, and even some holes 50ft or a 100 ft. wide, were covered with a thin ' film of snow with a crack in it, through which they could look from the side at the black caves underneath. MESS OF BROKEN ICE Fortunately, they had sunlight, and could avoid these traps, which were large enough to have swallowed a whole caravan. . They had used 70 flags in two miles - going through this region, so winding was the trail, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief when they finally emerged. They turned back to look at it, and even as they did a fog began to form and in ten minutes the whole area was blotted out. If they had waited a day longer they t could not have gone through. “It was one of the most spectacu--3 lar sights of the whole trip,” said 1 Walden, “to see that veil of fog settle down and shut out the awful mess of broken ice.” The rest of their trip xvas fairly 3 easy. They reached SI degrees 45 J minutes south, and laid down their last depot, and started back with light sledges.