When Scott found that we sledgers were getting temperatures as low as minus forty he decided to discontinue sledging rather than risk anything in the nature of severe frostbite assailing the party and rendering them unfit for further work, for it must be remembered that we had already been away from our base ten weeks, that many of us had never sledged before, and that the depot journey was partly undertaken to give us sledging experience and to point out what improvements could be made in our clothing and equipment.

The first and second weeks in April brought the ice changes that we had so long awaited, and after one or two false starts two teams set out from Hut Point on April 11 to make their way across the fifteen miles of sea ice to Cape Evans.

This turned out to be a somewhat hazardous journey, since it had to be made in the half light with overcast weather and hard wind.  Scott took charge of one tent and had with him Bowers, Griffith Taylor, and Petty Officer Evans, while I had in my party Wright, Debenham, Gran, and Crean.  The seven who remained at Hut Point in charge of dogs and ponies helped us out a league or so for the first part of our journey.

The route led first up the steep ice slope over-hanging Hut Point, and then to the summit of the ridge, which is best described as the Castle Rock promontory.  Our sojourn at Hut Point had given us plenty of chance to learn the easier snow roads and the least dangerous, and Scott chose the way close eastward of Castle Rock to a position four miles beyond it, which his first expedition had named Hutton Cliffs.  From Castle Rock onward the way took us to the westward of two conical hills which were well-known landmarks—­a hitherto untrodden route—­but the going was by no means bad.  Bitingly cold for faces and finger-tips, still, no weights to impede us.  We camped for lunch after covering seven miles, for the light was bad, but it improved surprisingly whilst we were eating our meal.  Accordingly, we put on our crampons about 3 p.m. and struck camp, securely packing the two green tents on the sledges, and casting a careful eye round the loads, tightened a strap here, hitched there, and then led by Scott we made a careful descent to the precipitous edge of the ice cap which overlays the promontory.  We got well down to a part that seemed to overhang the sea and, to our delight, found a good solid-looking ice-sheet below us which certainly extended as far as Glacier Tongue.  The drop here was twenty-five feet or so and Taylor and I were lowered over the cornice in an Alpine rope, then Wright and then the sledges, after that the remainder of the party.  An ash-pole was driven into the snow and the last few members sent down in a bowline at one end of the rope whilst we below eased them down with the other part.  The two parts of the Alpine rope working round the pole cut deeply into the over-hanging snow and brought a shower of ice crystals pouring over the heads and shoulders of whoever was sitting in the bowline.  It was a good piece of work getting everything down safely, and I admired Scott’s decision to go over; a more nervous man would have fought shy because, once down on the sea ice there was little chance of our getting back and we had got to fight our way forward to Cape Evans somehow.