I have a lot of respect for Shackleton too. Nonetheless, we form our judgements with the benefit of hindsight: had Shackleton, Worsley & Crean glissaded over a cliff on South Georgia, and Scott, Wilson & Bowers survived, we might be lauding the “indomitable Scott” and criticizing the poor planning of Shackleton that led to the deaths of his entire expedition. Antarctic exploration in the “heroic” age was a gamble even for the most skillful.

From another sporting context, Harold Drasco, Margins of Safety. “By a sequential accident I mean the end point in a chain of events, an accident which happens under pressure and which is any one of a random range of accidents available in the situation the climber has constructed, or which follows the only choice of action he has left himself. The chain of events may appear to have last five minutes or five hours; but it may also be seen to have extended for five years or longer, and this extreme case is worth thinking about.

“Climbers in this category may be described as being too committed to survive. One has to avoid direct illustration here, but from observation and reading it is perfectly clear that the literature and folklore or disaster exert a powerful influence on some climbers. Psychologists have described a characteristic type of fantasy in which a child invents a catastrophe—a bus crash, for example—from which it is the only survivor. It is possible to see the survivor-stories with which mountaineering is so well provided—Cassin on the Badile, Bonatti on the Frêney Pillar, and countless others—as offering real-life archetypes of these fantasies. The charge of feeling in such tragedies is so strong that, however painfully it is expressed, the reader or listener cannot avoid a response. The drama is almost always accompanied by all the atmospherics at Nature’s disposal. And, in contrast to this backcloth, the onward drive and inflexibility of purpose which carries the protagonist safely through appears as the essential quality which distinguishes the great mountaineer from the good mountaineer and which tilts the scales in favour of survival.

“This is an utterly false conclusion, but the voices of survivors impress us more than inscriptions on tombstones.”

True, but the eloquence and clarity of Scott’s letters, written in that final camp, show that
his mental function was as good as ever. Freezing to death in that tent, he wrote himself
a myth that lasted about 60 years. That’s an impressive achievement of literature and
propaganda. But as a planner and leader, I’d take the efficient Amundsen, the brilliant
Nansen, or the indomitable Shackleton every time.

Which we can never know, because we only have Scott’s word for what the conditions
were in that place at that time. He writes “scene of whirling drift”, but he doesn’t give
any wind or temperature measurements. And recent research suggests that while a 4-day
blizzard is very possible, an 11-day blizzard is highly implausible.

I think Scott was a good writer and evidently a very persuasive fellow. I also think he
was a damn fool and a lousy planner and decision-maker, and not to be trusted on any
matter of consequence – most especially on anything related to the reasons for the failure
of his expedition.

Anyhow, I guess it doesn’t matter: after 140+ days of Scott’s favored man-hauling on
Scott’s inadequate sledging rations, Evans and Oates were dead before the final camp,
Scott was crippled by frostbite and gangrene, and Wilson and Bowers were greatly
weakened. I see a lot more incompetence than heroism, YMMV.

No, not “whatever”. If you’re going to attempt to micro-manage Scott’s decision-making in March 1912, then you owe him a bit more attention to the conditions he was facing.

In your view, Scott was stupid for not making “a dash to One Ton Depot” and had maybe even “talked (or even ordered) the others out of making the attempt”. But what he wrote in his diary was “[March 21, 1912] To-day forlorn hope, Wilson and Bowers going to depot for fuel.” … “[March 22] Blizzard bad as ever—Wilson and Bowers unable to start—to-morrow last chance” … “[March 29] Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift.” So maybe the “dash” to the depot was substantially more difficult and dangerous than you make out.

Whatever. If you choose to believe Scott was a consistently good decision-maker and judge
of risks, then I suppose you’ll also choose to believe that his final decisions were good.
Personally, I think he was a consistently lousy decision-maker, so I’m inclined to see the
final inertia as the last in a long sequence of questionable choices – starting with the preference
for man-hauling over dogs, the purchase of particularly weak ponies, and the decision to
site One Ton Depot 35 miles further north than originally planned.

Alternatively, leaving the tent mean certain death from cold, whereas if they stayed in the tent they had a chance, no matter how slim, of surviving until the weather improved enough for them to reach the depot.

They didn’t know exactly, but they had a pretty good idea, since they had a fix from the
previous depot, and the sledgemeter (a wheel on the back of the sled) would give them a
dead-reckoning estimate of how far they had travelled since then. The second objection I
think is more serious, in low visibility it would be a risk: though AFAIK they had found
all their other depots ok, in varying weather.

RE the upthread notion that because Scott was only a dozen miles from One-Ton Camp he should have toughed it out: I thought the issues were (1) he didn’t know exactly how close he was and (2) in a blizzard he could easily walk right past the Camp.

Yes. And to modern eyes, isn’t there even an undercurrent of homoeroticism and even
S&M in the emphasis on physique, endurance of pain and suffering, and men wearing
harnesses ? Nansen and Amundsen just wanted to achieve the goal in the most efficient
and least risky way (though “risky” is a relative term in these exploits); Markham and Scott
got some kind of kick out of doing it with pain and suffering.

As for the bad weather, Bowers and Wilson (together with Cherry-Garrard) had been on the
winter sledging trip: they knew travel even in winter conditions was possible, even if
painfully slow.

I don’t think the decision to stay in the tent was rational: of course people suffering from
dehydration and hypothermia tend to take bad decisions – but then Scott was still
able to write well, his mental function wasn’t that bad.

I concur with ajay.

In The Worst Journey in the World Cherry-Garrard quotes Levick’’s account of shifting camp on Inexpressible Island (a journey of no more than a mile) in March 1912: “our journey [...] lay, first of all, across half a mile of clear blue ice, swept by the unbroken wind, which met us almost straight in the face. We could never stand up, so had to scramble the whole distance on ‘all fours,’ lying flat on our bellies in the gusts. By the time we had reached the other side we had had enough. Our faces had been rather badly bitten, and I have a very strong recollection of the men’s countenances, which were a leaden blue, streaked with white patches of frost-bite. Once across, however, we reached the shelter of some large boulders on the shore of the island, and waited here long enough to thaw out our noses, ears, and cheeks.”