1916
In mid-April 1915, explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance, carrying the 27 members of his Antarctic expedition, became locked in the polar ice in the Weddell Sea just off Antarctica. In the spring of 1916, as the ice warmed and drifted north, the ship was crushed. The party used the lifeboats to get to Elephant Island, a desolate, uninhabited island at the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula. There they were stranded. Shackleton and five others crammed into a lifeboat (named the James Caird), sailed across the frigid Scotia Sea for 800 miles (1,287 km), miraculously reaching South Georgia two weeks later. With great difficulty, they landed on the island's uninhabited west side at King Haakon Bay. Frostbitten and exhausted, with their clothing torn and crusted with sea salt, it was not feasible to set sail again in the wind, currents and huge seas to one of the whaling stations on the island's east side, which were the only human habitation on South Georgia. To get to there they had to cross unknown mountains and crevasse-riddled glaciers without equipment (at that time, the interior of the island was all but unknown). Unstoppable, Shackleton beached his boat and with two others made his daring traverse of the island, crossing the Fortuna Glacier in the process. Thirty-six hours later, without sleep or rest, they reached Stromness whaling station.
Read more about this topic: Fortuna Glacier