The adze proved an excellent instrument for this purpose, a blow sufficing to provide a foothold.
Anxiously but hopefully I cut the last few steps and stood upon the razor-back, while the other men held the rope and waited for my news.
The outlook was disappointing.

I looked down a sheer precipice to a chaos of crumpled ice 1500 ft.below.

There was no way down for us.
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.