January 10, 1912: On the plateau, the going gets tough

–from Scott’s diary–

“Wednesday, January 10.–Camp 62.  T. -11.  Last depot 88 degrees 29′ S.; 159 degrees 33′ E.  Var. 180.  Terrible hard march in the morning; only covered 5.1 miles (geo.)  Decided to leave a depot at lunch camp.  Built cairn and left one week’s food together with sundry articles of clothing.  We are  down as close as we can go in the latter.  We go forward with eighteen days’ food.  Yesterday I should have said certain to see us through, but now the surface is beyond words, and if it continues we shall have the greatest difficulty to deep our march long enough.

“The surface is quite covered with sandy snow, and when the sun shines it is terrible.”