If there’s one thing that can be agreed on about the polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, it’s that he was a great inspirer of men. In the story of his ship Endurance, which sank at the start of his attempt to cross Antarctica, it can often feel like he saved his men from certain disaster by sheer force of will alone.
But how far did that inspiration extend? On the other side of Antarctica, Shackleton’s Ross Sea Party made some of the continent’s most epic sledging journeys, suffering numerous setbacks and tragedies of their own to lay supply depots for a leader who never came. Now, the Last Cache Expedition has set its sights on retelling the story of the Ross Sea Party in their search for their final depot laid at the foot of Mount Hope, lost for more than a century. I spoke to the project’s founder Mark Reed to find out more.
An epic story hidden by history
The story of the Ross Sea Party is the largely unknown flipside to the Endurance expedition, and it wasn’t until Mark Reed first went to Antarctica that he first heard of its trials and achievements. He was working as a field guide store assistant at Union Glacier, the Antarctic logistics hub that’s the main staging post for expeditions to the South Pole, when one of the guest lecturers was Kelly Tyler-Lewis, the author of The Lost Men, the definitive account of the expedition. ‘I was instantly hooked,’ he says. ‘I was astonished how such an amazing story couldn’t believe that no one really seemed to know about their story.’
Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition called for two separate approaches to be taken to cross Antarctica. He knew that it was impossible to march across the continent in a single attempt, so while he and his team would cross to the South Pole from the Weddell Sea, a second team in the ship Aurora would approach from the opposite direction, laying a series of food and supply depots for him to find, and provision his men for the second half of the trek to finish at the Ross Sea.
The Ross Sea Party struggled from the outset. Shackleton left its men ill-provisioned and with confused instructions, and their late arrival in Antarctica meant that the men were forced to start laying their supply depots late in the season with too little time to prepare for polar conditions. ‘They lost most of their sled dogs as a result,’ says Reed, ‘And there was a personality clash between the two most senior members of the expedition, Ernest Joyce and Aeneas Mackintosh.’ As if this wasn’t bad enough, the ice-bound Aurora was blown out to sea during a ferocious storm, leaving the shore party stranded. They had enough supplies to lay Shackleton’s depots, but precious little to help them to survive over the winter.
Despite this, the expedition set out the following spring to lay their depots, unaware that on the other side of Antarctica, Endurance had been fatally gripped by the ice. ‘They knew that Shackleton would be depending on them and they couldn’t let him down. They pushed themselves to the limit to make sure he could complete his journey, not knowing he’d never even be able to start out.’
When they were done, the men had laid 3,800 pounds (1,700 kg) of supplies in a series of depots as far as Mount Hope at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier at 83°30′ south. Short of dogs, the men hauled the sledges themselves for most of the way – a round trip of nearly 1,500 miles (2,400 km). One of the team, Arnold Spencer-Smith, died during the sledging, while Mackintosh and Victor Hayward were swept out to sea on ice soon after completing the epic journey, never to be seen again.
The Last Cache
For 110 years, these depots laid by the Ross Sea Party have been quietly buried by snow, constantly moving as the glaciers they were laid on creep slowly towards the sea. But after studying accounts of the expedition, Reed realised that their final cache might still be out there waiting to be discovered. Unlike the others, the Mount Hope depot was probably laid on rock, not ice.
After studying satellite images of the landscape, he applied his experience as a mountain guide to put himself in the minds of the sledging party as they made their way towards the Beardmore glacier. ‘They would have had to hug the rock line at the side of the gateway,’ he says, adding that the location was chosen by Shackleton since he himself had been the one to discover the route during his earlier Nimrod expedition. Furthermore, he believes the topography of where the depot was laid should have protected it from being buried by any shifting glacial ice.
When the depot was laid, it was marked by a flag tied to an upright sledge – an easy marker for the team crossing from the Weddell Sea to find. One of the party, Ernest Wild, even left a letter there to his brother Frank, who was Shackleton’s right hand man. With this as his inspiration, Reed started to put plans in motion to find the depot – and symbolically trace Shackleton’s own expedition in the process, travelling from the South Pole to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier.
A sledging trip with a difference
Working at the field guide store at Union Glacier, Reed has been able to see firsthand how today’s overland expeditions in Antarctica work. ‘I spent a lot of time on logistics, helping with equipment and food, getting people’s kit ready for departure. There’s a lot you can only learn in the field – just like in the days of the first explorers,’ he says, before discussing the intricacies of fine tuning how to pack a sled or make adjustments to a sledging harness. Now he’s ready for an expedition of his own.
Joining him are Devon McDiarmid, who has skied to the South Pole more times than almost anyone on Earth and completed a record-setting crossing of Greenland, and polar guide Maggie Flatland. Together, they’re planning to ski from the South Pole to Mount Hope, where they’ll set up a base camp. ‘We could fly in, but recreating that section of the journey feels like an important experience, to recreate the historical experience of the Ross Sea Party and pay tribute to their achievements,’ he says.
Reed isn’t expecting that the depot will be quick to find—the top of the sledding pole will have long been buried by snowfall and drifts—but this is where the Last Cache Expedition’s secret weapon comes into play. A second team will fly to Mount Hope with Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) equipment, which they’ll drag by sledge over a gridded search box where they expect the depot to be, taking readings the whole time.
‘It’s exactly the same principle as how they found the wreck of the Endurance,’ he says, referring to the discovery of Shackleton’s ship in 2022. ‘And if it’s there, there’ll be no mistaking the ping we’ll get from the metal in the depot.’
What future for a historic site?
When I ask Reed what he’ll do when he hears that ping, he hesitates for the first time in our conversation. ‘The Indiana Jones in me is going to want to grab a spade and start digging,’ he says, before explaining that it’s not quite as simple as that.
‘The depot is a promise that was left in the ice, and as much as I want to see what’s there and read Ernest Wild’s letter, we’ll have to leave it buried, safely tucked under the snow like it’s been for all these years.’ The question of who technically owns the depot is open to debate, and similar sites from the same period are listed as Historic Sites and Monuments that are protected under the Antarctic Treaty.
For Reed, just confirming where the Mount Hope Depot is will be enough – and through the expedition, the opportunity to bring the story of Shackleton’s forgotten Ross Sea Party back into the public eye. ‘Their tale is all about heroism, sacrifice and selflessness. Everyone knows about Endurance, but these men who never knew about its sinking still pulled for their lives to support their comrades – and three of them never came home. It’s the most inspiring polar story I know, and this is our tribute to it.
*
The Last Cache Expedition is currently fundraising for a departure in 2026 or 2027. Learn more about the expedition at The Last Cache.
