Folk Antarctica

Ode to Two Depots (Mar 68)

Depots 13/117 and 400 had been established at the head of the Slessor Glacier during the 1967/68 Shackletons reconnaissance. 13/117 was at flag 117 on route no.13, the Theron to Shackletons route. As flags were planted every two miles this meant it was 234 miles from the Therons depot (a total of 480 miles from Halley). This was the furthest point the tractor support of our dog teams had reached before having to return to Halley to unload the annual boat. Depot 400 was a major fuel dump actually at flag 13/102 which was 400 miles along the new Theron/Shackleton routes. Fuel dumps were dropped every 50 miles. We were proud of these depots and some fifty miles to the north had set up a pyramid of three fuel drums and a reflective beacon and also arranged (Amundsen style) a series of drums set at right angles to the anticipated new route from the north. Find a drum with its cap on and turn right, find an upside down one with no cap and turn left. We were also pleased with the route for although it lacked some forty miles to the mountains, it looked eminently feasible. Anticipation was high as we sledged the six hundred miles return journey via the Theron Mountains but when on the high plateau, with the weather getting colder as winter approached and still two hundred miles to go, we were given the news over the radio that the overland route was to be abandoned. Next year the Yanks would fly our scientists to the Shacks. We were not best pleased

There are eighteen crates of field gear at a depot near the Shacks,
There's another dump of goodies on the way;
To north and south of both of these, two fifty miles of tracks,
Which were recced by some lads from Halley Bay;
There's cairns and drums and flags and things arranged in careful lines,
To facilitate the finding of each spot,
But two years snow obliterates most prominent of signs,
And so, you see, we'll lose the bloody lot!