1916 was a significant year in Irish history and it was but a few weeks after the rebellion of that year that another pair of Irish men were attempting to overcome the challenge of the barrier presented by mountains. They were Sir Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean who, along with Frank Worsley, traversed the uncharted mountainous interior of South Georgia.
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| Crean |
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| Shackleton |
None of the three would claim to have been mountaineers but they undertook a feat of mountain travel using improvised equipment - crampons and ice-axe - that enabled them to complete what would be the first confirmed land crossing of the South Georgia interior. Since they had no map, they had to improvise a route across mountain ranges and glaciers. They travelled continuously for 36 hours, before reaching a whaling station at Stromness.
Shackleton's men were, in Worsley's words, "a terrible trio of scarecrows", dark with exposure, wind, frostbite and accumulated blubber soot.
Shackleton had determined that the only way they could reach the whaling station at Stromness was to cross the island on foot, a feat that had never been done. They were ill equipped for such a crossing, wearing only threadbare clothing and boots. They threaded screws through the soles of their boots for extra grip in the snow and ice and to remain nimble they carried only enough provisions for three days.
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| Photo: Saróar Alam |
At approximately 3am they set off into the unknown …At the end of the first day, the trio had ascended 3,000ft and could see Possession Bay to the north. They realised they needed to get to the bottom of the valley before nightfall,... the unthinkable – they would step off the precipice in front of them and slide down....The three men coiled up their pieces of rope into three ‘pads’, Shackleton sat in front, Worsley straddled his legs around Shackleton, and Crean sat behind Worsley doing the same. Without pausing, they launched themselves into the unknown below. In Worsley’s own words:....I was actually enjoying it. It was most exhilarating. We were shooting down the side of an almost precipitous mountain at nearly a mile a minute. I yelled with excitement and found that Shackleton and Crean were yelling too. It seemed ridiculously safe. To hell with the rocks!.... Worsley estimated they had travelled approximately 3,000ft down the slope in about three minutes. The men shook hands, and Shackleton wryly commented, “It’s not good to do that kind of thing too often.”
After a brief break for a well-earned hot meal, they continued on their way… Shackleton, Worsley and Crean were exhausted and their nerves frayed. They had survived their makeshift sled ride down the mountain but were still a long way from Stromness, and getting there was largely an act of guesswork. After another six hours or so of hiking they reached the crevasses of a large glacier, however there were no glaciers at Stromness Bay. They took stock for a moment, huddled together in the lee of a large rock. Shackleton suggested that they take a half hour nap. Within a minute both Worsley and Crean were asleep. Although he was exhausted, Shackleton knew that if he too slept, they would likely never wake up. He waited five minutes before shaking his companions from their slumber to resume the march, telling them that they had slept the full half hour.They made their way toward a gap in a line of peaks, and as dawn approached, they saw the water of Fortuna Bay below and beyond that the mountains that they knew surrounded Stromness Bay.
From Antarctic Heritage Trust where a full account is available.
See the Shackleton Experience for further info
