After the conquest of the South Pole by Roald Amundsen in December 1911, Shackleton, who had sought this achievement himself, was forced to rethink his polar ambitions. He believed that there remained "one great main objective of Antarctic journeyings—the crossing of the South Polar continent from sea to sea." Basing his strategy on plans developed earlier by the Scottish explorer William Spiers Bruce, Shackleton planned to land with his main party as far south as possible, on the Weddell Sea coast. His transcontinental team would then march southward to the Pole, before continuing across the polar plateau and descending via the Beardmore Glacier (which Shackleton had discovered in 1909) to the Great Ice Barrier. The final stretch would take them across the Barrier to McMurdo Sound on the Ross Sea coast.