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PART E

The Darwin Mountains party which comprised Barrett (leader), Askin and Young of VUWAE 15, and Curreen, field guide and assistant, from DSIR, was put in at Island Arena by C-130 at 1000 on January 20th. The hour's reconnaissance flight before landing showed that there were larger areas of blue ice than expected between Island Arena and Westhaven Nunatak, 50 miles south and one of the major goals of the party. Because we had only one Polaris toboggan and had found previously that Sno-trics did not perform well on blue ice, it was decided that our efforts should be concentrated around Island Arena and the north-east side of the Hatherton Glacier.

The first three days were spent on geology around Island Arena. On one of these Barrett and Curreen broke new ground by tobogganing down glacier towards Junction Spur. They were stopped by a crevasse field almost hidden by vast areas of rotten ice. However they found rocks in the easternmost Darwin Mountains that are different from and probably older than any other Beacon strata previously known in the area. They also investigated a possible passage through to the lower Hatherton Glacier but turned back in the face of deteriorating weather. Askin and Young were late returning to camp after measuring sections around Mount Ellis because a track slipped off their Sno-tric toboggan and the clutch was slipping badly. We decided to leave that machine at the put-in point as it had already burnt out a clutch in 30 miles travelling previously and we had only one spare.

On January 24th we left for the Hatherton Glacier camp with the Polaris and the Sachs Sno-tric toboggans. The 30 miles took 12 hours to cover for we had to negotiate two crevassed areas and a long steep slope on the west side of Haskell Ridge. Though the Polaris was slower we spent more time waiting on the Sno-tric. The carburettor iced up in the drifting snow, and on some surfaces it was difficult to get the Sno-tric and sled started.

The following day we found a route - the only one in this area - down on to the unexplored Hatherton Glacier, and spent a further two days working on the geology. On January 28th Curreen and Young were taking the first load up the slope on the way to our next camp when the rear axle of the Polaris toboggan sheared. Next day the entire camp was moved with the Sno-tric to the south end of Haskell Ridge from where a good part of the local geology could be worked. The immobilised Polaris was pulled apart and towed about 2 miles on a sled to the nearest possible Hercules landing site.

On January 30th the Sno-tric was checked and the tracks found to be loose. The bolts for tightening the inside of each track required a socket or box spanner and none of the right size could be found in the tool kit. The track had already slipped off once and the rubber was cracked slightly in a couple of places. We did not feel inclined to risk our only means of reaching a pick-up point by doing geology and decided to abandon the rest of the geology programme. The situation was outlined to Scott Base next day and a request was made for page 15 our pick-up from the site of the immobile Polaris to be followed by a touchdown at Island Arena to recover the other Sno-tric and the rock samples collected in the first three days. We returned to the proposed pick-up area on February 1st, and were taken from the field about 2200, February 2nd. According to our information from Scott Base, VXE-6 had agreed to make the two field landings requested, but the pilot had instructions to land only once and we were taken straight back to Williams Field.