There could be no turning back now, so we unroped and slid in the fashion of youthful days.

When we stopped on a snow-bank at the foot of the slope we found that we had descended at least 900 ft.

in two or three minutes.

We looked back and saw the grey fingers of the fog appearing on the ridge, as though reaching after the intruders into untrodden wilds.

But we had escaped.
The country to the east was an ascending snow upland dividing the glaciers of the north coast from the outfalls of the south.