The weather was thick, the air was filled with a light snow, and the temperature was 31 deg.

below zero.
There was now light enough to travel by at ten o'clock in the morning.
When Bartlett had left the ship a week before, it was still so dark that he had been obliged to use a lantern in order to follow the trail northward along the ice-foot.
When I finally got away from the ship, there were in the field, for the northern work, seven members of the expedition, nineteen Eskimos, one hundred and forty dogs, and twenty-eight sledges.

As already stated, the six advance divisions were to meet me at Cape Columbia on the last day of February.

These parties, as well as my own, had all followed the regular trail to Cape Columbia, which had been kept open during the fall and winter by the hunting parties and supply-trains.

This trail followed the ice-foot along the coast the greater part of the way, only taking to the land occasionally to cut across a peninsula and thus shorten the road.
On the last day of February Bartlett and Borup got away to the North with their divisions, as soon as it was light enough to travel.