Vivian Fuchs's party left Shackleton Base with specially prepared Sno-Cats, two Weasels and an adapted Muskeg tractor; a third Weasel was abandoned on the way. Edmund Hillary's New Zealand team laid the depots from Scott Base with three Ferguson TE20 tractors, reached the Pole on 3 January 1958, and Fuchs's party arrived on 19 January — the first land vehicles ever to get there.
How many Sno-Cats went is not settled: the Tucker article says four, with door codes A to D, and the expedition article says three. Three survive — A at the Canterbury Museum in New Zealand, B at the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum in California, C at the Science Museum at Wroughton — and what became of D is not recorded. A photograph of B is image 108 on the Voyager Golden Record.
Trans-Antarctic crossing (1955–1958)
2 VEHICLES IN THIS CHAPTER3,473 km in 99 days; the Pole on 19 January 1958; Scott Base on 2 March.
Registry records · chapter 1
Sources
- Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition — Wikipedia
- Tucker Sno-Cat — Wikipedia