Link: The Stranding of the MV Shokalskiy
When you think you’re having a bad day…
At one point on the return journey, Mawson fell through a snow bridge and found himself dangling by his sled harness over a void. The exhausted explorer had to pull himself up along fourteen feet of frozen rope, one knot at a time. When he reached the lip of the crevasse, it gave way, precipitating him down the full length of his harness again.
With his fingers numb and clothes full of snow, he managed the climb a second time, and lay motionless on the edge for an hour before finding the strength to get up. After that, he made himself a kind of rope ladder, and while subsequent falls never became a highlight of his day, they at least grew somewhat less lethal.