BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION, 1907-1909 -- Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922)

Shackleton's harness from the Southern Journey, that saved his life on countless occasions as his party negotiated the crevasse-seamed Beardmore Glacier on the way to and back from the Polar Plateau: 'Just before we left the Glacier I broke through the soft snow, plunging into a hidden crevasse. My harness jerked up under my heart, and gave me rather a shake up. It seemed as though the glacier were saying: "This is the last touch of you; don't you come up here again."' E.H. Shackleton, The Heart of the Antarctic, London, 1909, I, p.355)

With just four ponies, in lieu of dogs, and with the last surviving pony Socks lost in a crevasse at the beginning of the ascent of the Beardmore Glacier, the majority of Shackleton's 1755 mile march to within 100 miles of the South Pole was achieved by manhauling sledges, on foot rather than ski, with harness and alpine rope.