The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

May 09, 2009 Buck rated it really liked it

Shelves: life-writing

Never again. Never again will I complain. About anything. The sufferings heaped on the members of Scott’s second polar expedition make the ordinary misfortunes of modern life –- the fender-benders, hangovers and breakups –- seem like pleasant diversions. There are passages in this amazing memoir where the reader, appalled, begins to suspect that these men were collaborating on a metaphysically refined form of self-destruction.

Apsley Cherry-Gerrard –- and let me say now what a wonderfully plummy ...more

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Sep 26, 2017 Beverly rated it really liked it

Written by one of Scott's men on his last fatal expedition to the South Pole, Worst Journey was written by one of the youngest men on his team and one of the most stouthearted. Cherry-Garrard went on the Winter Journey trip during the expedition to collect bird eggs. His story would have been horrific enough without the tragic end of Scott and several of his best and true friends later on. Cherry-Garrard was one of the team members who eventually found his leader and the others dead.

Favorite qu ...more

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Jul 19, 2017 Paul Bryant rated it really liked it

Shelves: travel

An interim review on the subject of DOGS and PONIES, creatures absolutely vital to any polar expedition in 1910. (They called them ponies, they were actually small Manchurian horses.) This is what happened to working animals, sometimes.

The voyage from England to Antarctica via South Africa and New Zealand lasted five weeks. They took 19 ponies and 33 dogs.

The ponies and the dogs were the first consideration. Even in quite ordinary weather the dogs had a wretched time.

They are chained up in var ...more

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Sep 02, 2017 Bettie rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: bbc radio listeners

Recommended to Bettie by: Laura

Shelves: play-dramatisation, adventure, published-1922, autumn-2017, tbr-busting-2017, antarctica

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00djvtl

Description: As Apsley Cherry-Garrard states in his introduction to the harrowing story of the Scott expedition to the South Pole, "Polar Exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised." Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World is a gripping account of an expedition gone disastrously wrong. The youngest member of Scott's team, the author was later part of the rescue party that eventually found t

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00djvtl

Description: As Apsley Cherry-Garrard states in his introduction to the harrowing story of the Scott expedition to the South Pole, "Polar Exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised." Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World is a gripping account of an expedition gone disastrously wrong. The youngest member of Scott's team, the author was later part of the rescue party that eventually found the frozen bodies of Scott and three men who had accompanied Scott on the final push to the Pole. These deaths would haunt Cherry-Garrard for the rest of his life as he questioned the decisions he had made and the actions he had taken in the days leading up to the Polar Party's demise.

Prior to this sad denouement, Cherry-Garrard's account is filled with details of scientific discovery and anecdotes of human resilience in a harsh environment. Each participant in the Scott expedition is brought fully to life. Cherry-Garrard's recollections are supported by diary excerpts and accounts from other teammates. Despite the sad fate of Scott, the reader will grudgingly agree with the closing words of The Worst Journey in the World: "Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion. And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore.... If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg."

Apsley Cherry-Garrard's gripping account of his experiences as the youngest member of Captain Scott's polar expedition team, adapted by Stef Penney.

In the austerely beautiful icescapes of Antarctica, things go disastrously wrong.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard ...... Matt Green
Captain Robert Falcon Scott ...... John McAndrew
Dr Atkinson ...... Carl Prekopp
Captain Oates ...... Mark Meadows
Lieutenant Bowers ...... Peter Callaghan
Charles Wright ...... Simon Lee Phillips
Dr Edward Wilson ...... Richard Mitchley
PO Tom Crean ...... Jack Reynolds
Taff Evans ...... Huw Davies

Specially composed music by Will Gregory of Goldfrapp, orchestrated by Ian Gardiner and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Grant Llewellyn. ...more

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Jan 04, 2015 Fiona rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history-non-fiction, travel-writing, nature-writing

Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s ‘worst journey in the world’ is not Scott’s journey to the South Pole. I was surprised by that. It was the journey he made to Cape Crozier, with Bowers and Wilson of the ill fated polar team, in search of Emperor penguin embryos. It’s hard to believe that they were amongst the first men to see Emperor penguins and that they were prepared to risk their lives, and very nearly lost them, in the interests of furthering scientific knowledge of the penguins’ place in evolution. Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s ‘worst journey in the world’ is not Scott’s journey to the South Pole. I was surprised by that. It was the journey he made to Cape Crozier, with Bowers and Wilson of the ill fated polar team, in search of Emperor penguin embryos. It’s hard to believe that they were amongst the first men to see Emperor penguins and that they were prepared to risk their lives, and very nearly lost them, in the interests of furthering scientific knowledge of the penguins’ place in evolution.

Scott’s journey to the South Pole, in the hope of being first there and claiming it for his king and country, was simply bait to acquire funding for scientific exploration. Amongst the men in his party were highly respected scientists keen to further their and the world’s knowledge of the origins of the planet, a new continent’s natural life, meteorology and so on, and they succeeded in doing so. The race to the Pole was always of secondary importance but had to be done to justify the backing Scott had received. That they were beaten to the Pole by Amundsen and that all five men who completed the last leg of the journey to the Pole died on the return journey is the lasting memory, however.

I hadn’t considered what happened after Scott and his men died. Back at base, an impossible decision had to be made. Would they try to rescue Campbell and his men who had been marooned further west whilst conducting scientific research, or would they try to find the bodies of those who had perished, knowing that this must have been their fate? Should they try to rescue men who may still be alive or those who definitely were not? After a difficult debate, the vote was overwhelmingly for recovering the bodies as Campbell, if he and his team had survived, could try to make it back to base themselves. If they couldn’t, chances were the journey to rescue them would also be impossible.

C-G doesn’t dwell too much on the finding of Scott’s last camp. His account was written ten years afterwards but it’s clearly still too painful a memory for him and understandably so. The last chapter consists of his reflections and he is clearly angry with those who blamed Scott for making mistakes which led to the loss of life. Again and again, he returns to the defence of the planning process, saying that it could not have been planned any differently at the time and those judging in hindsight should not claim the moral high ground.

This is an exhausting book. At times, there is just too much detail about the minutiae of daily life, interesting though that is, and of the readings taken daily whether travelling or living in a camp. The fate of many of the animals, dogs, ponies, penguins and seals, is difficult to read about and the men themselves regretted the suffering they experienced, particularly the dogs and ponies with whom they had bonded and on which they had relied so heavily. Overall, however, it is a fantastic account of the whole journey from sailing to the Antarctic to the return home three years later. When the remaining men reached New Zealand, they were astounded by the public mourning for Scott and his men, and would be astounded still if they knew we are still fascinated by their journey. Perhaps they would also be disappointed in the overshadowing of their many achievements by the public fascination with Scott’s heroism and his terrible death.

Recommended to everyone with a fascination for the Antarctic and its exploration. Unquestionably 5 stars. ...more

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May 03, 2012 Laura rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Bettie

Recommended to Laura by: Wanda

Shelves: memoir-biography, antarctica, e-books, gutenberg, audio-books, read-2015, adventure, travel

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

From BBC Radio 4 - Classical Serial:
Apsley Cherry-Garrard's gripping account of his experiences as the youngest member of Captain Scott's polar expedition team, adapted by Stef Penney.

1/2: In the austerely beautiful ices capes of Antarctica, things go disastrously wrong.

2/2: After two months of hard marching, Scott must tell four of the surviving twelve men that they must turn back.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard ...... Matt Green
Captain Robert Falcon Scott ... ...more

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Jul 22, 2020 Quo rated it really liked it

Shelves: wilderness-adventure, nature-environment

The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard is his account of the 1910-13 Terra Nova British Antarctic Expedition, made when the author was 24. Initially rejected as being unqualified because he lacked a needed background in science, Cherry-Garrard, who had read classics, studying Latin & Greek at Oxford, was eventually chosen as an "assistant zoologist" when he guaranteed a substantial amount (£100, the equivalent of $130,000 in U.S. currency today) to help fund the exp ...more

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Apr 15, 2020 Krista rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020, mustich-1000-to-read-before-you-die, nonfiction, polar-exploration, memoir

Antarctic exploration is seldom as bad as you imagine, seldom as bad as it sounds. But this journey had beggared our language: no words could express its horror.

Originally released in 1922, The Worst Journey in the World is a contemporaneous account of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13, as written by Apsley Cherry-Garrard: Scott's second youngest team member (twenty-four at the time of sailing) who would go on to serve England admirably in the First Worl
Antarctic exploration is seldom as bad as you imagine, seldom as bad as it sounds. But this journey had beggared our language: no words could express its horror.

Originally released in 1922, The Worst Journey in the World is a contemporaneous account of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13, as written by Apsley Cherry-Garrard: Scott's second youngest team member (twenty-four at the time of sailing) who would go on to serve England admirably in the First World War and spend the rest of his life suffering trauma, depression, and PTSD. Because this book was written during the peak days of polar exploration, Cherry-Garrard includes both thrilling adventure tales (in wry, evocative prose) and scientific data points (latitudes reaches over how many miles, wind speeds, minimum temps and maximum drift), and while I much preferred the former to the latter, I appreciate that the author was writing for both the armchair adventurer and they who might be planning polar treks of their own; he could have written this no other way. I loved every minute of this long, dense read. (I should also note: My edition has a hundred pages of introductory information about Cherry-Garrard's life, not counted in the volume's 600 pages, and while I thoroughly appreciated the context this gave to me, it felt a bit frustrating to read for hours and not feel like I had started the actual book.)

I have seen Fuji, the most dainty and graceful of all mountains; and also Kinchinjunga: only Michael Angelo among men could have conceived such grandeur. But give me Erebus for my friend. Whoever made Erebus knew all the charm of horizontal lines, and the lines of Erebus are for the most part nearer the horizontal then the vertical. And so he is the most restful mountain in the world, and I was glad when I knew that our hut would lie at his feet. And always there floated from his crater the lazy banner of his cloud of steam.

There's so much I could recount about the details of this expedition (even the last leg of the sailing out from New Zealand – with ponies and dogs tied up on deck in harsh, high seas; the dogs washed overboard to the end of their chains and then swept back on the next wave – seems incredible before they ever set foot on the Antarctic continent), but the details are too numerous for a summary to do this tale justice; it must be read in whole. I will note that one of Cherry-Garrard's primary objectives seems to have been to humanize the five expedition members who lost their lives on the Polar Journey itself, and especially to confront and correct any criticism that Captain Scott had publicly suffered in the decade since he had lost his life. Describing the daily labours in camp or on sledge runs, Cherry-Garrard describes each man around him as a “brick”; hard-working and cheerful; every man capable of good humour and selflessness in the darkest times, open to friendly debates and singsongs and bonhomie. Of Scott he writes:

He will go down to history as the Englishman who conquered the South Pole and who died as fine a death as any man has had the honour to die. His triumphs are many – but the Pole was not by any means the greatest of them. Surely the greatest was that by which he conquered his weaker self, and became the strong leader whom we went to follow and came to love.

And of the two men, Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers, who accompanied Cherry-Garrard on the Winter Journey (the actual “worst journey in the world” of the title), he writes:

In civilization men are taken at their own valuation because there are so many ways of concealment, and there is so little time, perhaps even so little understanding. Not so down South. These two men went through the Winter Journey and lived; later they went through the Polar Journey and died. They were gold, pure, shining, unalloyed. Words cannot express how good their companionship was.

And so to the Winter Journey: Wilson – the chief scientific officer of the expedition, who had accompanied Scott on his earlier quest for the South Pole (1901-04) – had discovered the Emperor Penguins' remote breeding grounds on that earlier expedition and believed that if they could secure some unhatched eggs (which are laid in the dead of winter), much could be learned about the evolution of early birds from reptiles. And so these three men, in the total darkness of a polar winter, in the unprecedentedly cold temperatures of −40 to −77.5 °F, pulled their sledge over unlevel ground and unseen crevasses, for a hundred kilometres in each direction. The cold, the wet, the frozen solid fur sleeping bags that would take an hour to squirm into each night (and which were so cold that one's back felt like it would break from night-long convulsive shivering), the exhausting march, the winds, the dangers – the entire tale is harrowing. In the end, they were able to make one brief trip to the rookery and brought back three unbroken eggs.

The horror of the nineteen days it took us to travel from Cape Evans to Cape Crozier would have to be re-experienced to be appreciated; and any one would be a fool who went again: it is not possible to describe it. The weeks which followed them were comparative bliss, not because later our conditions were better – they were far worse – but because we were callous. I for one had come to that point of suffering at which I did not really care if only I could die without much pain. They talk of the heroism of dying – they little know – it would be so easy to die, a dose of morphia, a friendly crevasse, and blissful sleep. The trouble is to go on...

There is then a brief humourous interlude (made more pitiable and ironic by the knowledge that Wilson and Bowers eventually die on the Polar Journey) in which Cherry-Garrard describes the indifference with which the Chief Custodian of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington will accept his offering of Emperor Penguin eggs. (Indeed, Cherry-Garrard would return some time later with Captain Scott's sister to see these eggs and they were told that there was no record of their existence!) The eggs would eventually be recovered and studied, and according to Professor Cossar Ewart of Edinburgh University's report:

If the conclusions arrived at with the help of the Emperor Penguin embryos about the origin of feathers are justified, the worst journey in the world in the interest of science was not made in vain.

So, there's that. Near the end, Cherry-Garrard has some comments about the fact that Roald Amundsen's team beat Scott to the South Pole by five weeks. There's a hint of criticism about Amundsen's show of poor sportsmanship (apparently Amundsen had announced he was embarking on a trip to the North Pole but turned his ship at sea and sneakily reached Antarctica just ahead of Scott), and Cherry-Garrard stresses repeatedly that making a journey to the Pole was secondary to the scientific survey Scott's team was doing for the advancement of global knowledge, but still, it must have been galling for Scott to fight his way, man-hauling sledges, to reach the Pole and find Amundsen's and Norway's flags planted there. (There was also found there a letter written to the King of Norway with a note from Amundsen asking Scott to mail it for him: was this an ungentlemanly way of demanding that Scott prove he made it to the Pole while also publicly proving that Amundsen made it there first?) On the other hand, Cherry-Garrard writes that if one's sole objective is to make it to the Pole, all credit should be given to the new route that Amundsen discovered, and he also backhandedly praises Amundsen's use of some 250 dogs – surplus dogs brought along to feed the working dog teams – that meant Amundsen could swiftly and comfortably ride on a sled in each direction, never once doing the back-breaking sledge-hauling that Scott et al. engaged in (hard labour which, coupled with an inadequate diet, eventually killed them).

I was fascinated by this narrative and Cherry-Garrard's writing was consistently evocative and well-phrased. The tone was also often wry and gently humourous:

Dog-driving is the devil! Before I started, my language would not have shamed a Sunday School, and now – if it was not Sunday I would tell you more about it!

I loved the whole of it. ...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: non-fic, 2011, kindle-baby, history, own, faves, book-crushes, what-a-man, been-around-the-world-and-i-i-i

He wasn't lying with that title, but what's missed out is that it's perhaps the most incredible journey too, as well as one of the most incredible books I've ever read (if I could give this 10 stars it wouldn't be enough).

Concerning Scott's last expedition to the Antarctic of which I previously knew woefully little (even though he's a hometown boy), I no longer have to lament that fact thanks to this most comprehensive and compelling account by Apsley Cherry-Garrard who, at 24, was a member of t He wasn't lying with that title, but what's missed out is that it's perhaps the most incredible journey too, as well as one of the most incredible books I've ever read (if I could give this 10 stars it wouldn't be enough).

Concerning Scott's last expedition to the Antarctic of which I previously knew woefully little (even though he's a hometown boy), I no longer have to lament that fact thanks to this most comprehensive and compelling account by Apsley Cherry-Garrard who, at 24, was a member of the expedition (though not of the last dash to the pole) and made it back to tell the tale. Painstakingly compiled from not only Garrard's diaries and remembrances but also through those of the other men, from letters home and the many, meticulous records of the journey (it chiefly having a scientific object), Garrard fully presses home the ideal that these men strove to uphold even in the face of certain death - to shine a little light on the darkest, most inhospitable corners of the world and bring forth a little more knowledge, laying a foundation for those who came after to build upon.

Garrard does a truly fantastic job of immersing you in his material, not only giving you all of the detail surrounding the expedition down to temperatures, wind directions, logistics, etc but also painting a vivid picture of their lives there. Alongside the hardships there are moments of wonder and joy; in the beauty of their surroundings, of their discoveries and studies and in the way Garrard writes of the personalities of the animals and men (I adored the indomitable Bowers as, clearly, did Garrard). Sitting alongside is unhistrionic documentation of the most unimaginably inhospitable environments and acts of incredible endurance, bravery and generosity that I don't think I'll be ever able to forget (Crean's solitary journey of 35 miles, on foot and with no equipment, to raise help for a dying man, completely awes me). Waking afloat on a patch of floating sea ice, teeth splitting due to the cold, frostbite, hourly drops into crevasses and the terrible blindness of blizzards are just some of the other horrors within. I can't even begin to imagine what a temperature of -75 feels like, but if I ever whinge at a festival that my clothes are damp again, you have my permission to slap me.

We all know now became of Scott's last Polar Journey and it's very easy to look at it with the benefit of hindsight and point out mistakes. I spent quite a lot of time cursing the horrific distances between depots and Garrard, in his stated aim of passing on knowledge to future explorers, is forthcoming about the many shortcomings and miscalculations as well as the plain rotten luck experienced by the party. Having read this now, and feeling like I've come through the journey with them, I find it hard to condemn any of the actions within and am instead struck with a feeling of awe at what was accomplished and endured, and what a debt we owe to all of the people who have gone out and discovered all of the wonderful things we know about the world. ...more

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Jan 11, 2011 Tom Stallard rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, autobiography, travel

This is, quite simply, my desert island book. No other book encapsulates the message of hope in amoungst utter futility quite as perfectly as this. Describing the adventures of the Scott expedition, for all its joy and folly, based on the jaded observations of a man who went filled with hope and expectation and looks back at an older, more cynical age. As a travel diary, it has no comparison: this truly was a journey into the heart of darkness. While the famous Scott expedition to the pole is co ...more

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Jan 10, 2018 Kay rated it liked it

Shelves: harrowing-tales, nonfiction, polar-regions

I think I would have quite enjoyed a condensed version of this book, minus the two very long (and fairly useless) introductions, the slog of endless details ( multiple daily temperature readings, accounts of meals, miles logged, weather and sledging surface notes, other record-keeping minutia), and, most importantly the repeated paeans to Cherry's fellow explorers, who, we are repeatedly told, were endowed with marvelous temperaments and almost never complained and were eternally cheerful under ...more

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Feb 11, 2009 Leftbanker rated it it was amazing

Shelves: travel

Read this book and you'll never bitch about stuff like not having enough towels in your hotel room or an over-cooked steak you were served at a restaurant in Paris. Yet another story that makes the modern man relize that there are no more worlds to discover. Polar exploration was just about the last of the travels into the unknown. I don't count space exploration because for that you need an entire country's economy behind you. Now any knob can circle the world with only a credit card. Sic trans ...more

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Jan 18, 2017 Jakub rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This book has a number of problems. From minor to major:

- It has an insane amount of introductory text
- It is self-consciously written as an epitaph to all the dead expedition members
- It's overly detailed and full of information that is almost completely irrelevant and uninteresting to the modern reader

This book has two introductions and a foreward, totalling almost 100 pages. I didn't feel that these pages were necessary or added much to my enjoyment of the text. At best they should be skimmed This book has a number of problems. From minor to major:

- It has an insane amount of introductory text
- It is self-consciously written as an epitaph to all the dead expedition members
- It's overly detailed and full of information that is almost completely irrelevant and uninteresting to the modern reader

This book has two introductions and a foreward, totalling almost 100 pages. I didn't feel that these pages were necessary or added much to my enjoyment of the text. At best they should be skimmed, but in a pinch they can be skipped entirely. So there go 100 pages of this 700 page book...

Another huge chunk of this book is given to hagiographies of every single expedition member. The book goes on and on about how amazing everyone was, how well they got along, how swimmingly it all went. They were just amazing men in a terrible environment who were beset with bad luck and weather. It seems that, for an expedition that failed in almost every respect, you would expect more mention of the mistakes that were made. However, Apsley's survivor's guilt is compounded by his Britishness, and so everyone is just a fantastic gentleman and a great friend and they all got along swimmingly and a good portion of them died terribly and oh by the way so did all of the animals they dragged down there. So not only do you have to slog through all of the glowing praise of every single expedition member, again struggling to care, but you do it with the knowledge that these men made enormous mistakes at multiple points in the journey, and yet you can find little to no mention of these mistakes!

Back on the subject of length, this book originally started as a bureaucratic report (more or less), and it shows. Apsley is obviously trying to be as detailed as possible, in the hope that their (mostly disastrous) experiences might help future expeditions. He also goes into a lot of detail about the scientific observations that the group made. Here's the problem: almost none of this is relevant any more. Wool vs animal hide outerwear for dog sledding? The (now debunked) recapitulation theory of embryology? The exact temperature observed of every damn day and where they were? The lessons learned from bringing Mongolian ponies to Antarctica?I found that my eyes would keep going down the page, but my mind would wander, and when I realized I wasn't actually reading any more I couldn't even make the case for going back and re-reading what I'd missed. The only thing I can imagine that is more boring and tedious than man-hauling sledges through hip-deep snow at a rate of 1 mile per day is reading about someone else doing it!

Also, because the book strives to be so comprehensive, it pulls a lot from accounts written by other expedition members, which doesn't help. When Apsley is writing about his own experiences, you can see that he's a great writer. He manages to be poetic and literary while also driving home the human experience of what he went through. I wish more of this book were made up of his own personal account, and less of the minutiae of the expedition and words of other, lesser, writers.

My advice for you if you do decide to read this book: at the very least, skip the 95 pages (!) of introductory text. Better yet, read only Chapter 7: The Winter Journey. That is "The Worst Journey in the World", written entirely from Apsley's own experiences, and it was fantastic reading. It's responsible for an entire star of the 2 stars I gave this book. ...more

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Feb 03, 2008 Tom rated it it was amazing

This is a first rate adventure story told by a man who is sensitive, thoughtful, courageous, and kindhearted. The part of the book from which the title is taken is maybe the most harrowing saga I've ever encountered, involving minus 70+ degree temperatures, howling winds, deadly crevasses, starvation, hopelessness, and endless darkness, all to collect Emperor Penguin eggs in the middle of an Antarctic winter.
I am not so big on non-fiction generally, but this is a book I could read again and a ...more

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Jan 24, 2016 Dillwynia Peter rated it really liked it

This is a slow read, but not dull, just packed full of information. Cherry-Garrard (Cherry) was asked to provide some information on how to pack & train for future expeditions, based on his experience (he might not have been the most experienced of the group, but he had worked a lot with Wilson & Scott, so was one of the most knowledgeable survivors). He fulfilled that chore, but he wanted so much more to be said & this was the outcome. Bernard Shaw was a neighbour & so helped in encouragement & This is a slow read, but not dull, just packed full of information. Cherry-Garrard (Cherry) was asked to provide some information on how to pack & train for future expeditions, based on his experience (he might not have been the most experienced of the group, but he had worked a lot with Wilson & Scott, so was one of the most knowledgeable survivors). He fulfilled that chore, but he wanted so much more to be said & this was the outcome. Bernard Shaw was a neighbour & so helped in encouragement & I suspect as an editor.
The title is a little misleading: for us, the Worst journey is the one that would kill Scott & his party, but this isn’t the one Cherry is referring; rather Cherry was one of the men to trek across the northern coast of Ross Island to collect Emperor Penguin eggs in the depths of winter. The conditions were appalling and it is only good management by Wilson, the tenacity of the three men, and belief in themselves that they survived. Oh & they brought back 3 eggs which now reside in the British Museum. They survived 2 months of below -40c (the colder the weather the better they could travel – which sounds bizarre - which worked till a certain temp when nothing worked) & so they devoted their body warmth every night to unfreezing their sleeping bags & sleeping in a pool of water (I believe the better Hilton’s around the world are offering this luxury). They built a hut, but in a zone that was regularly hammered by cyclonic conditions (there was a good reason why it was so smooth), and only by erratic wind pressure, did they ever relocate their tent during such a storm (it landed less than a mile down the slope).
One learns a bit too much detail in this book. I’m not complaining, but you can see the portions that started as a “manual” of dos & don’ts. Those tables and lists are dull, but the detail of how they spent the endless dark winters are interesting. I particularly loved the list of necessary books to take for entertainment: a Latin dictionary, a Times Atlas & the Bible. Times have definitely changed & sadly, probably for the worst in erudition. The men were resourceful and created entertaining pieces for the in house newspaper. There was also the endless quest for knowledge – here they were the typical boffins, which hasn’t changed. Their inventiveness to see a question & research it kept me amused & one that I could see myself repeating in a similar situation.

Then there are the diary entries for dealing with Manchurian ponies and the motorised sledges; both contributed to the disasters. Dogs had been used experimentally previously, so deemed not reliable – of course, Amundsen would successfully ascent to the South Pole using dogs & sledges. (Did you know the South Pole is some thousands of feet above sea level? Neither did I)
The sheer bloody-mindedness and belief on one’s self and the endurance of all the men is staggering. What is not commonly known is that there were TWO parties lost in 1911. Not only had Scott not returned but due to poor conditions the geologists spent an entire winter stuck in an igloo they improvised and relied on the local seal colony to sustain them with meat & fuel. The decision was to find out which party were still alive and it was decided Scott must have perished, so finding & rescuing the geologists was the 1st priority. It is scenes like this that I found compelling and what drove me to complete this mammoth book. Cherry was part of the party that located Scott's tent containing the bodies and being one that 1st read the correspondence left by Scott in his dying hours.
Cherry was never to recover from this journey. Almost immediately on his return to England he was sent to France as a commissioned officer. By 1916 he was invalided out and he would spend the rest of his days fighting severe mental illness. The writing of this book allayed some of his symptoms. He never had children fearing of passing on his mental illness to his children.
Cherry was the youngest of the Terra Nova expedition and in retrospect probably not really suited for the rigours. He was lucky however, in becoming the protégé of Bill Wilson, the lead zoologist. The world lost an aspiring scientist when Wilson died with Scott and more probably should be recognised for his writings and thoughts made during this expedition. I suspect he would have become one of the greats of the early 20th century. Cherry’s youth shines through in this book – particularly as he hero worships and has an obvious schoolboy crush on Wilson.
Much has been lionised about this expedition, but Cherry is simple in his assessment of the failure of the expedition. The motorised sledges were useless, the ponies chosen were of an average quality, but most importantly the food quality was lacking. The extreme cold caused them to expel more calories than they consumed and it ultimately caused their deaths through exhaustion.
I did enjoy this book and the frankness of it all. It might have been extended high summer where I was reading it, but during every passage I felt cold - bitterly cold, exhilarated with every discovery and adventure, and admired the stark beauty of the landscape. That is an excellent writer if ever you will encounter.
Get the Dover addition if you can. It has the original photographs, but also some of Wilson’s line drawings. Those drawings entitled Fallen into a Crevasse and Travelling in a Blizzard are plain bloody scary.
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Jun 29, 2011 Pete daPixie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, polar, travelogues

Apsley Cherry-Garrard's 'The Worst Journey in the World' is quite simply a 20th century classic. Published in 1922, the author recounts, in almost six hundred pages, Scott's polar expedition of 1910-1913.
I find reviewing this book extremely difficult. I'm probably still in a state of reverential and dumfounded awe after reading such an eloquent masterpiece. In the field of polar exploration or travel writing, this book is utterly astounding.

It is now a century past since the exploits of this 'wo ...more

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Dec 01, 2008 Sapetron rated it liked it

Pemmican, apparently, tastes quite delicious when stirred into hot water and eaten as a "hoosh." Also, the Antarctic is cold & horrible & I really want to go there because falling in a crevasse would look amazing on a tombstone. ...more

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Jul 10, 2019 Maj rated it really liked it

Well, this sure was a long, exhausting read.

As an account of a very unique human experience it's absolutely priceless, as a book one feels kind of drowned in details.
Still, considering ACG wasn't a professional author, I'd say he was rather a natural. Though I did enjoy whenever he'd quote the diaries of the other members of the expedition (not so much Scott, in turns dry and melodramatic, but someone like Lashly, for instance).

I do realise the book had sort of a manifold purpose at the time of ...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Jonathan Hutchins rated it liked it · review of another edition

At a time when traditional heroism has been deconstructed and psycho-analysed out of existence, it becomes more necessary to understand the nature and purpose of the desire which drove a crew of men, most no longer young, to explore Antarctica and reach the South Pole. Note the order of those objectives: the comparison of Scott's 'failure' with Amundsen's 'success' is outrageously wrong: the latter was in a race to the Pole, the British party had a wide variety of scientific observations and int At a time when traditional heroism has been deconstructed and psycho-analysed out of existence, it becomes more necessary to understand the nature and purpose of the desire which drove a crew of men, most no longer young, to explore Antarctica and reach the South Pole. Note the order of those objectives: the comparison of Scott's 'failure' with Amundsen's 'success' is outrageously wrong: the latter was in a race to the Pole, the British party had a wide variety of scientific observations and interests as well as that other goal. Cherry-Garrard's testimony (not being widely read in the literature of polar exploration I don't know to what extent its account and conclusions have been revised or contradicted in the years since) describes a life of barely comprehensible arduousness and snails'-pace progress in weather conditions which were often alarmingly unpredictable and which in the end probably defeated the Polar Party. What makes Scott's well-known final testimony excruciatingly poignant is that he knew they were only eleven miles from One Ton Depot but because of continuous heavy blizzards none of the party were able to set out. Edgar Evans had died some miles before. It made me think how primitive in some ways was 1912: allegedly the ignorance of the crucial role of vitamins in diet contributed to their hunger and debility. The motor sledges were a novelty but all failed. Cherry-Garrard's writing is articulate and always interesting, whether describing the corporate comfortable fug in the Hut at Hut Point over the 1911-12 winter, the crazy winter journey to obtain Emperor Penguin eggs, or the tragedy of the Polar Party. And it's evident that he was haunted for the rest of his life by the 'what-if's of the expedition, to the extent of bouts of depression and compiling a privately published postscript to this book. The head-doctors term this 'post-traumatic stress'; on a higher level it can be understood as the difficulty of adjusting to a more undemanding existence after a sustained period of heightened awareness, exertion, perception, and experience. ...more

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Jul 23, 2017 Jonna. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: polar-exploration

I read this book of 600 pages in less than a week and believe me, its not on the TOP 100 list for travel and adventure books for nothing!

If you know the story of Scott and his companions and the drama at the south pole already you will probably find this book easier to read but the author makes many footnotes so that also "beginners" in polar exploration can understand it well!

What I loved about this book is that we get the view of an ordinary expedition member, neither sailor nor scientist, b ...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Randolph rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: travel, non-fiction, polar

Absolutely the most astonishing narrative of human trial survival against nature. The "Worst Journey..." is not Scott's expedition to the Pole, tragic as that was, but the Winter Journey to the rookeries of the Emperor Penguins.. Facing temperatures as low as -78��F and fierce blizzards and gales the small team man-hauls to the rookeries, at one point having their tent blow away at night! Remember this was in 1911. No Goretex, no nylon.. All in search of the Emperor Penguin's egg.

Cherry-Garrard ...more

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Dec 06, 2014 Wanda marked it as to-read

9 Dec 2014 -- find it here -- http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14363

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Nov 25, 2018 Andrew Ollerton rated it it was amazing

Strong contender for best book i've ever read! Salute to you Cherry ...more

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Nov 09, 2019 Irene rated it it was ok

This exhaustive account of the ill-fated Scott party’s exploration of the Antarctic was too long and too detailed for my taste.

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May 22, 2013 Fraser rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

One of the finest books I have ever read in terms of defining the spirit of the adventurer going genuinely into the unknown.

Everyone knows the tragedy of the Scott Polar expedition, with its supposed 'race' with Amundsen to get to the South Pole, but here is one of the key members of that expedition some 10 years on, reflecting on it all, from start to finish.

To say heroic, is just simply an understatement. Cherry-Garrard's very own 'worst journey' with Wilson and Bowers off to Cape Crozier to c One of the finest books I have ever read in terms of defining the spirit of the adventurer going genuinely into the unknown.

Everyone knows the tragedy of the Scott Polar expedition, with its supposed 'race' with Amundsen to get to the South Pole, but here is one of the key members of that expedition some 10 years on, reflecting on it all, from start to finish.

To say heroic, is just simply an understatement. Cherry-Garrard's very own 'worst journey' with Wilson and Bowers off to Cape Crozier to collect emperor penguin eggs is an epic in its own merit. Placed within the context of the herculean efforts of the overall expedition it assumes the status of just another chapter. The key to Cherry-Garrard is in his descriptions not just of the hardships and travel, but the psychology, the team spirit, and an uncanny ability to do the right thing no mind the cost. To be honest, if you were ever in a difficult place, a dangerous situation, I would with no word of a doubt would want to be around men like this. It is hard to encapsulate that spirit, often it is quoted with Titus Oates famous last words as he stepped off out into the polar night, but there is just so much more to it than this.

Scott has his critics, and I read Ranulph Fiennes excellent defence of him some time ago. Having read this, I believe Fiennes to be correct. Scott instilled something incredible - not blind hero worship, but a sense of togetherness that held despite his own downfall on the return journey. That it was Cherry-Garrard who found his tent with him Wilson and Bowers, seems very apt.

Three years at the pole, no sat phones, no GPS, no fancy tech laden clothing. Lots of wool, bamboo for tent poles and a reliance on animals (ponies and dogs). No chance of air-lift rescue etc, this was similar to me to as say someone trekking the surface of the Moon.

It almost seems to me absurd that anyone survived the expedition, such were the hardships and privations. Not just the physical elements which were incredible. But as Cherry-Garrard himself noted, it wasn't about being the strongest and fittest in terms of pulling sledges or putting up with the cold, it was in the mind.

The beauty in the Chapter "The First Winter" is awe inspiring and one can feel exactly why this expedition took place when it is completed. It is not a rose tinted piece of reminiscing, which makes it all the more inspiring.

There are some incredible travel and expedition books out there. I have read a few of them. But I can honestly say, nothing touches this, and likely never will.

Highly recommended. ...more

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Jul 23, 2016 Simon Hollway rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-time-highs, 2016

Christened with such an exotic moniker, our flamboyantly named author could only have pursued one of three careers: an Edwardian rector, the reluctant bait in an Oscar Wilde honeytrap operation or else an intrepid yet feckless explorer. Fortunately for the literary world, Apsley Cherry-Garrard became the latter… though more fettered than feckless.

Perhaps not a natural writer, C-G cribs from various other expedition members’ anecdotes, personal notes and posthumous diaries. Antarctic companion Bo Christened with such an exotic moniker, our flamboyantly named author could only have pursued one of three careers: an Edwardian rector, the reluctant bait in an Oscar Wilde honeytrap operation or else an intrepid yet feckless explorer. Fortunately for the literary world, Apsley Cherry-Garrard became the latter… though more fettered than feckless.

Perhaps not a natural writer, C-G cribs from various other expedition members’ anecdotes, personal notes and posthumous diaries. Antarctic companion Bowers’ evocative diary excerpts are certainly the most lyrical and enchanting of all. Nevertheless, Cherry cobbles together something remarkable and mesmerising.

The saga does become a little scrappy, wanders about a bit and occasionally plays chronological hopscotch which can be disorientating. Frequent conflations of geography, dog teams, food dumps and sleds make the ‘plot’ frequently tough to unpick and work out who is where, with whom and why at any one time. BUT, but, but, this temporary snow-blindness aside, the narrative remains hypnotically compelling; morbidly engaging with an incrementally intense, centrifugal magnetism.

Every time the polar party’s frozen body sweat began to melt, their clothes dripping with moisture at MINUS 20 degrees, my toes, gut and brain clenched into a foetal position. God knows why they just didn’t put an ice pick through their skulls. My heart would have simply stopped as soon as there was the first gust of wind or I felt an icicle inside my panties.

Ironically, the various domesticated and wild animals, described with such care and tenderness, are the real stars of this book. – particularly the valiant ponies but also the half-wild wolf-dogs, the mischievous and adorable Adelie penguins and the innocent, overly trusting seals. Such gallant, delightful temperaments and sometimes demonic dispositions set in stark, detailed relief against the icy, blank canvass. One by one, each animal’s unique character bursts into song in Mr Cherry-Garrard’s efficient prose.

A humbling read for those who require humbling and a comparative pick-me-up for those who have been humbled too much.
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Apr 20, 2014 Joan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: project-gutenberg, read-again, free-to-download, fabulous, real-life, factual, historical, heroism, antarctic-heroism

(Free on the Gutenberg Project, complete with illustrations.)

But I also bought this hardback copy. A wonderfully thick book, beautiful to hold and read. So much more 'satisfying' than reading on a Kindle

A fabulous book, written in a comfortably 'personal' manner without any heroics ,just a factual account of real life. Utterly readable, amusing, sad, terrifying and brought me to tears in places. Quiet, understated English pluck at its best, and very different in style to Scott's somewhat dry an ...more

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Oct 11, 2016 Sean Williams rated it it was amazing

One of the most harrowing, exciting, moving, informative and brave books I have ever read. I can see why it towers over other books of its type. Highly recommended.

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May 19, 2011 Katie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Dad

Shelves: biography-autobiography, history, favorites, great-big-hunks-o-nature

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” said Henry David Thoreau when he read the galley proof of Walden and realized what kind of gonif editor he was faced with. Still, it did rather well. So has The Worst Journey, in spite of the fact the Natointal Geograhpic society ! has gotten hold of it.”

Now the book is over, and it’s back to my stinkin’ life. This is a fudge sundae of personal history, journals of explorer friends; of mountains, glaciers, ice, crevasses, pemmican and killer wh “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” said Henry David Thoreau when he read the galley proof of Walden and realized what kind of gonif editor he was faced with. Still, it did rather well. So has The Worst Journey, in spite of the fact the Natointal Geograhpic society ! has gotten hold of it.”

Now the book is over, and it’s back to my stinkin’ life. This is a fudge sundae of personal history, journals of explorer friends; of mountains, glaciers, ice, crevasses, pemmican and killer whales; of hauling a sledge in the dark at 77 degrees below zero; cold and dark and light in word-pictures from every angle till you see and feel them in your sleep. There are courage and triumph and loyalty and disaster. Yet the only happiness in it is when, well, let’s face it, “All the world loves a penguin.” Cherry clearly loves the Adelie penguins, with their little dinner suits, their cheeky waddle, their brutal life cycle, and their fearlessness. He will make you love them too.

Is it wrong to fall in love with an author? I feel like I know him. At just 24, he begged and bribed his way into the expedition—no doubt hoping for high adventure, like a medieval knight—after being initially turned down because of his extreme nearsightedness. Because he couldn’t wear his glasses when sledging (they fogged up), and because he volunteered so often, and because he was “often scared out of my wits,” he suffered more than most of the men from cold, hunger and sickness. He suffered, too, from the loss of his best friends when the Polar party died, and never forgave himself for waiting at One Ton Depot and not taking supplies farther south to relieve them, although on his return to the winter quarters he was so sick he could barely walk. After the Great War he sat down to write an Official Narrative, and in the Introduction apologizes to the Antarctic Committee for leaving out the tedious details they doubtless expected. This is characteristic of his self-effacement throughout. But one can imagine his friend Bernard Shaw, who read and helped write, snorting into his enormous beard.

Cherry emphasizes that the Scott expedition was devoted to science, unlike Amundsen’s expedition (which beat them to the Pole, and lived to tell the tale), and he insists that he is writing for the sake of science. But he studied classics, so we will forgive him for writing a memoir instead. They did a lot of scientific observation—geology, zoology, meteorology—and some of it was actually useful, and a little of it makes sense in the text. But the reader is left wondering why in the world these men put themselves through three long years of hellish wind and wet and cold and dark at the risk of their very lives. He does address this: Science is an investment that requires patience, and its returns are seldom quick or obvious. “We are a nation of shopkeepers…If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin’s egg.”

Was it worth it? The question is open.

I would knock the book down to four and a half stars if I could because of all the errors. The typos are annoying enough, but there are a couple of places where large chunks of text are missing. During the nightmare Winter Journey (from which, at Bernard Shaw’s suggestion, the book takes its title), Cherry, Wilson and Bowers experimented with different amounts of carbohydrates, protein and fat in their diet. But we never get to find out how it turned out, because the editor decided to skip a very large bit of information, right in the middle of a sentence. And then there are the maps. For their own reasons, the three maps the editors have included show only a few of the places Cherry mentions, not including Cape Adare, Evans Coves, any of the supply depots except One Ton, or THIS THING CALLED THE BARRIER that is basically the protagonist of the book, but nowadays it’s called the Ross Ice Shelf, which good luck figuring that out from the maps because “Map reflects present-day place names.” Seriously? This is the National Geographic Society?

There are no pictures in this barren edition, and the maps are terrible, but the Public Library yielded up A First Rate Tragedy by Diana Preston, which has useful maps, some photos, more information, the full names of most of the party (which Cherry leaves out), and a detailed analysis of reasons for the Polar party’s fate. It is not nearly as good a book, but it’s a fine companion. In The Coldest March Susan Solomon, a meteorologist, re-examines the Scott expedition and concludes that the main reason Scott perished was the unusually cold temperatures they encountered on the Ross Ice Shelf. On Solomon’s recommendation, I picked up The Worst Journey, which I would never normally have read. In my (futile) search for a map with Evans Coves on it, I have found more references to this book than any other single source. It is the classic of Polar exploration. I think you should read it.
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Nov 02, 2018 Alana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: educational, adventure, history, nature-and-botanical, science, memoir

Things I have learned:

- your teeth can shatter in your mouth when it's -60F
- you can get frostbite on the same parts of your body over and over again
- it's possible to "thaw" a sleeping bag in negative temperatures
- penguins have little fear
- the Poles are dangerous places (well, ok, I knew that one already)
- scientists are b**-s*** crazy

So yes, this was a fascinating book. I don't recommend it unless you're really into a lot of sciency jargon (or can skim quickly) but if you're remotely interes ...more

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