Table of Contents

Foreword
Peter Barrett
8
Erebus
Son of Chaos
11
1. Antarctica
Carved by ice, forged in fire
17
2. 'Mountains of Madness'
A continent ringed by fiery islands
29
3. 'This Splendid
Burning Mountain'
The discovery of Mount Erebus, 1841
46
4. 'Keeper of the
Southern Gateway'
The first ascent of Mount Erebus, 1908
68
5. 'Give me Erebus
for my friend'
The second ascent, 1912
91
6. HMS Pemmican
sails on Erebus
The third ascent, 1959, and beyond
107
7. The heartbeat of Erebus
Probing the defences of the volcano, 1970s
129
8. 'No Latitude for Error'
Reflections on the 1979
Ross Island air crash
161
9. The darkness beckons
Roger Mear's solo winter ascent
of Erebus, 1985
185
10. Scrambles in the
heart of the Antarctic
An ascent of Erebus
from Cape Royds, 1991
204
11. Tread lightly in a land
of extremophiles
The unique microbial world of Erebus
219
12. The magma and the mantle
Solving the Erebus enigma,
1980-2016 . . . and beyond
239
13. Shaping a volcano
Erebus and the artistic imagination
Adele Jackson
263
Erebus chronology 286
Air New Zealand Flight TE901 302
Glossary 308
Notes 313
Further reading 317
About the author 334
Acknowledgements 335
Index 339

About the Author

Colin Monteath is a New Zealand-based polar and mountain photographer and writer. From 1973 Colin worked in Antarctica for 31 seasons, and in 1978 made the first descent into the Inner Crater on Erebus. In 1979 he helped co-ordinate the recovery work following the Air New Zealand crash. He has made numerous first ascents in the Transantarctic Mountains, and in 1993 became the first New Zealander to reach the highest summit in Antarctica, Vinson Massif. Founder of Hedgehog House New Zealand, a photography library and publishing house, he has worked on numerous book projects on the polar regions, including the Reader's Digest book Antarctica: Great Stories from the Frozen Continent (1985), Smithsonian Institution Press's Wild Ice: Antarctic Journeys (1990), and Antarctica: Beyond the Southern Ocean (1996).