On the next day the clouds parted and the sun burst forth.  It seemed to us as if we had been transferred to a totally new country.  In the direction of our advance rose a large glacier, and to the east of it lay a mountain range running from southeast to northwest.  Toward the west, impenetrable fog lay over the glacier and obscured even our immediate surroundings.  A measurement by hypsometer gave 8,200 feet for the point lying at the foot of this, the “Devil’s Glacier.”  We had therefore descended 2,600 feet since leaving the “Slaughter House.”  This was not an agreeable discovery, as we, no doubt, would have to ascend as much again, if not more.  We left provisions here for six days and continued our march.

From the camp of that night we had a superb view of the eastern mountain range.  Belonging to it we saw a mountain of more wonderful form than I have ever seen before.  The altitude of the mountain was 12,300 feet; its peaks roundabout were covered by a glacier.  It looked as if Nature, in a fit of anger, had dropped sharp cornered ice blocks on the mountain.  This mountain was christened “Helmer-Hansen Mountain,” and became our best point of reference.  There we saw also the “Oscar Wisting Mountains,” the “Olav Bjaaland Mountains,” the “Sverre Hassel Mountains,” which, dark and red, glittered in the rays of the midnight sun and reflected a white and blue light.  In the distance the mountains seen before loomed up romantically; they looked very high when one saw them through the thick clouds and masses of fog which passed over them from time to time and occasionally allowed us to catch glimpses of their mighty peaks and their broken glaciers.  For the first time we saw the “Thorvald Nilsen Mountain,” which has a height of 16,400 feet.

It took us three days to climb the “Devil’s Glacier.”  On the first of December we had left behind us this glacier with its crevasses and bottomless pits and were now at an elevation of 9,350 feet above sea level.  In front of us lay an inclined block-covered ice plateau which, in the fog and snow, had the appearance of a frozen lake.  Traveling over this “Devil’s Ball Room,” as we called the plateau, was not particularly pleasant.  Southeasterly storms and snow flurries occurred daily, during which we could see absolutely nothing.  The floor on which we were walking was hollow beneath us; it sounded as if we were going over empty barrels.  We crossed this disagreeable and uncanny region as quickly as was compatible with the great care we had to exercise, for during the whole time we were thinking of the unwelcome possibility of sinking through.