By arriving at the South Pole on 14 December 1911, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (1872–1928) reached his destination over a month ahead of the British effort led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912). As Scott’s party approached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, they were devastated to see from afar the Norwegian’s black flag. On arrival, they discovered the remains of his camp with ski and sledge tracks, and numerous dog footprints. Amundsen, it turned out, had used dogs and diversionary tactics to secure victory while the British team had man-hauled their sledges. These differences were not lost on The Times in London, which marked the achievement with muted praise, declaring it ‘not quite in accordance with the spirit of fair and open competition which hitherto marked Antarctic exploration’. Exhausted, Scott and his men spent time the following day making scientific observations around the Pole, erected ‘our poor slighted Union Jack’, and photographed themselves in front of it (Plate 11). Lieutenant Bowers took the picture by pulling a string to activate the shutter. It is perhaps the most well known, and at the same time the saddest picture, of the entire expedition—a poignant image of the doomed party, all of whom look utterly fed up as if somehow sensing the fate awaiting them. The cold weather, icy wind, and dismal circumstances led Scott to acerbically remark in his diary: ‘Great god! This is an awful place and terrible enough to have laboured to it without the reward of priority.’ By this time, the party had been hauling their sledges for weeks, and all the men were suffering from dehydration, owing to fatigue and altitude sickness from being on the Antarctic plateau that sits nearly 3000m above sea level. Three of them, Captain Oates, Seaman Evans, and Bowers, were badly afflicted with frostbitten noses and cheeks. Ahead lay the return leg, made all the more unbearable by the crippling psychological blow of knowing they had been second to the Pole. After a gruelling 21-day trek in bitterly cold summit winds, the team reached their first cache of food and fuel, covering the distance six days faster than it had taken them to do the leg in the other direction.
Altitude sickness and Antarctic polar plateau: A review
