From Middle Earth to the End

During my trip to Antarctica I managed to ready my new all time favorite book, The Worst Journey in the World by Aspley Cherry-Garrard. Obviously I recommend it to everyone. Its a timeless tale of a lesser know but absolutely heroic adventure to find some penguin eggs.

It was particularly interesting to me as I read through it with the adventure correlating to my time on the Ice. As Cherry spoke of Castle Rock  I would stare up from my seat and note the massive landmark. We did our seal census next to Hutton cliffs where he battled with this sledge. Seeing Scott’s discovery hutt has so much more value as I knew even more of the inner workings and stories of them who built the structure. I pretended to know what the conditions were like for him but couldn’t conceive the hardships. In our perfect conditions everything was such an effort it seem unreal he was working in -70 degrees and pitch blackness.

My favorite quote comes about Erebus of which I read during the first couple days at Scott Base:

“I have seen Fiji, the most dainty and graceful of all mountains; and also Kinchinjunga: only Michael Angelo among men could have conceived such grandeur. But give me Erebus for a friend. Whoever made Erebus knew all the charm of the horizontal lines, and the lines of Erebus are for the most part nearer the horizontal than the vertical. And so he is the most restful mountain in the world, and I was glad when I knew that our hut would lie at his feet.  And always there floated from his crater the lazy banner of his cloud of steam. “

If you can put yourself in my ECW boots and imagine what it was like to read this knowing that I too would soon be lying at the feet of Erebus than you will know why this quote is all but etched in my brain. I found Cherry was correct in describing Erebus as a masterpiece and I became quite attached to him.  Our camp was also placed in Windless Bight, directly where Cherry, Bowers and Wilson crossed through to get to Cape Crozier.

If you get a chance to read this book its great up to the 643 page. In fact, the last two paragraphs were the greatest of the whole novel for me. BUT DON’T CHEAT! you can not skip to the end, they won’t have the same meaning for you. The real life events of this book are more surreal than the latest Harry Potter novel.