“The country to the east was a great snow upland, sloping upwards for a distance of seven or eight miles to a height of over 4000 ft. To the north it fell away steeply in glaciers into the bays, and to the south it was broken by huge outfalls from the inland ice-sheet. Our path lay between the glaciers and the outfalls, but first we had to descend from the ridge on which we stood. Cutting steps with the adze, we moved in a lateral direction round the base of a dolomite, which blocked our view to the north. The same precipice confronted us.

“We retraced our steps down the long slope that had taken us three hours to climb.”

— Ernest Shackleton, South

“We all felt ‘fed up’ with our wearying search up and down, up and down, for a road through.”

— Frank Worsley