to 100 knots during the night. On the 26th May one of the other sledge units (Echo) working in the Upper Trough area reported their tent had been torn during the night by flying ice. A bit of a lull on the 27th allowed Steve with the Terrors and Eric with the Huns to rendezvous with Sledge Echo and guide them back to our camp adjacent Nosedive Depot. By this time, Sledge Kilo (Neil MacAllister and Roger Scott) also working in the area had arrived at Nosedive and were planning to leave again the following day in the company of Echo and their torn tent.
However, the wind returned in force battering the tents with flying ice. On the 31st May I was getting used to the buffeting wind and the frequent crackle of airborne gravel and ice chunks. It was like camping inside a drum. Thinking it would be another lie up day I turned over and dosed.
At 11 am I was rudely awoken by Chris shouting, “The tent’s gone!” I could see daylight coming through the back of the tent. Steve suggested we pack our ‘P’ or personal bags which we did within seconds and within a minute or so I had all my outside gear on ready for action. Steve made the first move and leapt out the tent to get some rope. He secured himself and I hung on to the other end of the rope while he tried unsuccessfully to reach one of the other tents (choice of 3). Wind speed at this point was at least 100 knots.
All of the ballast had blown off the tent valance and the tent was inflated ready to blow down the glacier into Square Bay. While Steve continued to make further attempts to get our ‘P’ bags across to the two man tent, Chris and I packed up all the inside boxes.
During a later incident Steve met up with Neil MacAllister who had been nursing a big hole in his tent since 9am. So, it looked like only the 2 man and Echo’s ripped and re-sewn 3 man tent were left intact. I then replaced a slightly exhausted Steve to lash some boxes onto my sledge. At one point, carrying a 70 pound dog food box, I was blown straight over the sledge and down the glacier. I weighed around 15 stones at the time. Meanwhile, the wind constantly pelted me with ice and gravel (some up to 1.5 cms in diameter). Once all the boxes were tied down, Steve and I secured the tent using my handlebar rope and pickets. Crawling was the order of the day to get around. Next we roped up and sought refuge in the 2 man tent until a stipulated hour when we planned that everyone would take the ripped tents down. Sadly, a few poles got bent and the odd guy rope chopped in the process. It was still blowing hard. At one point Roger Scott and I got buried in a mass of ventile and poles as our tent whipped over on top of us. Eventually all the damaged tents were secured on the sledges. Next job was to arrange the Nosedive Depot in the form of a 2-sided ‘V’ shaped wind break amply weighed down by huge rocks. We thought this would house pup tents and provide shelter for all of us should all the tents go. As extra back up there was also a nearby crevasse adjacent Nosedive rocks.
We had done everything we could to survive. It was now a waiting game.
So, my story ends here on 31st May with five of us spending the night in Echo’s 3-man tent and the other four in the 2-man tent. Three days later after some temporary re-stitching of the damaged tents along the way, we were safely home at Stonington base. What a relief!
Dave Singleton (Geologist) – Stonington Base E 1972 and 1973