If you like frostbite-inducing weather and death-defying adventure stories, then award-winning author David Roberts gives you what you want: a wonderfully told, impressively researched tale of brave explorers confronting Antarctic blizzards, a deadly landscape pockmarked with deep crevasses and intrepid men trying to come back alive. Mawson may be the most famous Australian explorer, and Alone on the Ice is an admirable introduction of him to American readers. This is Roberts at his best, telling a little-known tale of adventure, tragedy, and endurance. Ed Viesturs, author of K2: Life and Death on the World s Most Dangerous Mountain' Roberts takes the reader alongside the men of the 1912 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, and the desperation of Mawson s sledge journey can be well imagined step by frigid step.

'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.Ī fresh and thoroughly researched account of Doulas Mawson's epic journey of self-rescue across one of the most inhospitable regions known to man. It is illustrated by a trove of Frank Hurley’s famous Antarctic photographs, many never before published in the United States. This thrilling and almost unbelievable account establishes Mawson in his rightful place as one of the greatest polar explorers and expedition leaders. On February 8, when he staggered back to base, his features unrecognizably skeletal, the first teammate to reach him blurted out, “Which one are you?” Mawson was sometimes reduced to crawling, and one night he discovered that the soles of his feet had completely detached from the flesh beneath. A line of poetry gave him the will to haul himself back to the surface. Now Mawson himself plunged through a snow bridge, dangling over an abyss by the sledge harness.

On January 17, 1913, alone and near starvation, Douglas Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, was hauling a sledge to get back to base camp. His two companions dead, food and supplies vanished in a crevasse, Douglas Mawson was still one hundred miles from camp.

Alone on the Ice by David Roberts