13 Away at Last
October 14, 1957, Hillary and his tractor team finally left Scott Base for the South Pole, after the long Antarctic winter during which the dogs were taken for training runs and Hillary and his “Old Firm” tested the Ferguson tractors by traveling to Cape Crozier to visit the Emperor Penguin rookery. Husky teams also ventured into the mountain ranges on survey work.
14 Polar Trekking with Dog Teams
Little that man voluntarily endures is more primitive than living with a dog team, week after week, in Antarctica. Ten men with the expedition spent up to four and a half months on trips of exploration, collectively traveling about 5000 kilometres and professionally mapping about 52,000 square kilometers.
15 What the Scientists Did
During the IGY, 64 nations ignored the Cold War to combine and coordinate their scientific studies worldwide for two years. The principal fields of study sound very prosaic these days: solar activity, latitude and longitude, glaciology, oceanography, meteorology, geomagnetism, aurora and airglow, ionospheric physics, seismology and gravity, cosmology and – last but definitely not least – upper atmosphere rocket studies that lead to the first satellite, Sputnik, followed some months later by American satellites.
16 Ed Pushes On
Hillary and his tractor team reached the Polar Plateau Depot 270 on October 29 – supported by trailblazing husky teams — completed laying supplies of food and fuel flown up by the aircraft — and then pushed on to lay Depot 480. [The numbers “270”, “480”, etc, refer to the statute miles from Scott Base.]. By December 20 they reached and completed supplying Depot 700 – about 800 kilometres from the South Pole and almost 1200 kilometres from Scott Base. According to the master plan, Fuchs and his party should have been coming up over the horizon but