After 17 days at sea, Shackleton and his five men reach South Georgia Island. But arrival is not salvation. The whaleboat James Caird is battered, and the only settlement lies on the opposite coast, separated by 30 miles of unexplored, unmapped mountainous terrain.
With three men too weak to attempt the crossing, Shackleton, Frank Worsley, and Tom Crean set out on foot across peaks reaching 10,000 feet, carrying three days' rations and no sleeping bags. Racing against weather that could trap them on the ice, they navigate false descents, near-fatal crevasses, and make a desperate decision to slide down an icy slope into the unknown.
This will be Shackleton's last ordeal.
SOURCES
Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition. Basic Books, 1959.
Alexander, Caroline. The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition. Knopf, 1998.
Jarvis, Tim. Shackleton's Epic. BBC, 2009.
Shackleton, Sir Ernest. South: The Endurance Expedition. Penguin Classics, 1919.
Worsley, Frank Shackleton's Boat Journey , 1933
