We went forward, the Owner’s team as before consisting of Dr. Bill, Titus and [Seaman] Evans, and [Lieut.] Teddy Evans and Lashly coming over to my sledge and tent to join up with Crean and myself.  We all left the depot cairn marked with two spare 10-feet sledge runners and a large black flag on one.  Our morning march was not so long as usual owing to making up the depot, but we did five miles uphill, hauling our heavier loads more easily than the lighter ones yesterday.  A fall in the temperature had improved the surface.  We had also sandpapered our runners after the tearing up they had had on the glacier; this made a tremendous difference.  The afternoon march brought our total up to 10.6 miles for the day on a S.W. course.

We are steering S.W. with a view to avoiding ice-falls which Shackleton met with.  We came across very few crevasses; the few we found were as broad as a street, and crossing them the whole party, sledge and all, would be on the bridge at once.  They only gave way at the edges, and we did nothing worse than put our feet through now and then.  The surface is all snow now, neve and hard sastrugi, which seem to point to a strong prevalent S.S.E. wind here.

We are well clear of the land now, and it is a beautiful evening.  I have just taken six photographs of the Dominion Range.  We can see many new mountains.  Our position by observation is 85 deg. 13’ 29” S., 161 deg. 54’ 45” E., variation being 175 deg. 45’.

December 23.  Turned out at usual time, 5.45 A.M.  I am cook this week in our tent.  After breakfast built two cairns to mark spot and shoved off at quarter to eight.

We started up a big slope on a S.W. course to avoid the pressure which lay across our track to the southward.  It was a pretty useful slog up the rise, at one time it seemed as if we would never top the slope.  We stopped for five minutes to look round after 21/2 hours’ hard plugging and about 11/2 hours later reached the top, from which we could see the distant mountains which have so recently been our companions.  They are beginning to look pretty magnificent.  The top of the great pressure ridge was running roughly S.E. and N.W.:  it was one of a succession of ridges which probably cover an area of fifty or sixty square miles.  In this neighbourhood Shackleton met them almost to 861/2 deg. south.  At the top of the ridge were vast crevasses into which we could have dropped the Terra Nova easily.  The bridges were firm, however, except at the sides, though we had frequent stumbles into the conservatory roof, so to speak.  The sledges were rushed over them without mishap.  We had to head farther west to clear disturbances, and at one time were going W.N.W.