page_title: Discovery Expedition
section_title: Second year
hierarchical_section_title: Discovery Expedition / Expedition / Second year
caption_attribution_description: English: Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri), Ross Ice Shelf, Cape Washington, Antarctica Français&#160;: Manchot empereur (Aptenodytes forsteri), Barrière de Ross, Cap Washington, Antarctique
context_page_description: The Discovery Expedition of 1901–1904, known officially as the British National Antarctic Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier. Organized on a large scale under a joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society, the new expedition carried out scientific research and geographical exploration in what was then largely an untouched continent. It launched the Antarctic careers of many who would become leading figures in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott who led the expedition, Ernest Shackleton, Edward Wilson, Frank Wild, Tom Crean and William Lashly.
  Its scientific results covered extensive ground in biology, zoology, geology, meteorology and magnetism. The expedition discovered the existence of the only snow-free Antarctic valleys, which contain Antarctica's longest river. Further achievements included the discoveries of the Cape Crozier emperor penguin colony, King Edward VII Land, and the Polar Plateau on which the South Pole is located.
context_section_description: After the 1903 winter had passed, Scott prepared for the second main journey of the expedition: an ascent of the western mountains and exploration of the interior of Victoria Land. Armitage's reconnaissance party of the previous year had pioneered a route up to altitude 8,900 feet (2,700 m) before returning, but Scott wished to march west from this point, if possible to the location of the South Magnetic Pole. After a false start due to faulty sledges, a party including Scott, Lashly and Edgar Evans set out from Discovery on 26 October 1903.
  Ascending the Ferrar Glacier, which they named after the party's geologist, they reached a height of 7,000 feet (2,100 m) before being held in camp for a week by blizzards. This prevented them from reaching the glacier summit until 13 November. They then marched on beyond Armitage's furthest point, discovered the Polar Plateau and became the first party to travel on it. After the return of geological and supporting parties, Scott, Evans and Lashly continued westward across the featureless plain for another eight days, covering a distance of about 150  miles to reach their most westerly point on 30 November. Having lost their navigational tables in a gale during the glacier ascent, they did not know exactly where they were, and had no landmarks to help them fix a position. The return journey to the Ferrar Glacier was undertaken in conditions which limited them to no more than a mile an hour, with supplies running low and dependent on Scott's rule of thumb navigation. On the descent of the glacier Scott and Evans survived a potentially fatal fall into a crevasse, before the discovery of a snow-free area or dry valley, a rare Antarctic phenomenon. Lashly described the dry valley as "a splendid place for growing spuds". The party reached Discovery on 24 December, after a round trip of seven hundred miles covered in 59 days. Their daily average of over 14 miles on this man-hauling journey was significantly better than that achieved with dogs on the previous season's southern journey, a fact which further strengthened Scott's prejudices against dogs. Polar historian David Crane calls the western journey "one of the great journeys of polar history".
  Several other journeys were completed during Scott's absence. Royds and Bernacchi travelled for 31 days on the Barrier in a SE direction, observing its uniformly flat character and making further magnetic readings. Another party had explored the Koettlitz Glacier to the south-west, and Wilson had travelled to Cape Crozier to observe the emperor penguin colony at close quarters.
caption: Emperor penguins. The colony at Cape Crozier had been discovered by a party led by Charles Royds, in October 1902.
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