With only five dogs remaining from the previous season's debacle, the task would mostly be one of manhauling.

Some chroniclers have suggested that excessive reliance on manhauling may have cost the lives of Scott's polar party.

Manhauling, sometimes expressed as man-hauling: is the pulling forward of sledges, trucks or other load-carrying vehicles by human power unaided by animals or machines.

Later, when the Pole had been attained and Amundsen's prior arrival discovered, Oates privately castigated "our wretched manhauling" as a cause of his party's defeat.

I had to take this absurd course as there is simply no way of traveling from one side of the Antarctic continent to anothershort of manhauling that is.

Furthermore, as Debenham himself wrote, "The fact of the matter is that neither Scott nor Shackleton, the two great exponents of manhauling, understood the management of sledge dogs."

Assisted manhauling is where at least some fraction of the motive power is provided by some other source: most commonly dog power, or by use of a wind assisted sail.

It has been suggested that Markham's prejudices about polar travel, particularly his belief in the "nobility" of manhauling, had been passed to Scott, to the detriment of all future British expeditions.

A figure of considerable influence, he brought his prejudices to bear on the series of great British Antarctic ventures during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, in all of which manhauling was predominant.

Francis Leopold McClintock earned the title of "Father of Arctic Sledging" for his feats of manhauling travel during one of the many expeditions despatched to search for the missing Franklin expedition.

Based on his experiences with McClintock and his love for naval traditions, Markham, future President of the Royal Geographical Society, became a fervent believer in the principle that manhauling was the purest form of polar travel.

So named by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition (VUWAE) (1962-63) because of its use as a landmark for manhauling sledge journeys and aircraft flights which supported the expedition and landed there.

It took only a minute or so for Paul to jumar up and over the lip, but getting Gary rightside up and then lifted up over the overhang so he could attach his own jumars, took a bit longer and involved some manhauling.

Attempts by the early polar explorers to adopt these techniques were rarely successful-the handling of "Eskimo" dogs was recognised as a specialized art; This led to the use of manhauling as a simpler alternative, when the Royal Navy began its long association with polar exploration.

Dogs were not used, and man-hauling was the order of the day.

At the same time Scott's team were more physically active in man-hauling the sledges.

Thereafter man-hauling began to be seen as a natural, even a 'nobler' alternative to the use of dogs.

However, the sledges quickly broke down, and the motor party had to switch to man-hauling the supplies.

Half of the distance was intended to be covered by man-hauling (and sails whenever conditions permitted).

But even if it meant man-hauling their own sleds, the four decided they would rather take their chances than wait.

Apparently, Scott didn't take the strain of prolonged man-hauling at high altitudes sufficiently into account.

The results of the men's early efforts to master these techniques were not encouraging, and tended to reinforce Scott's preference for man-hauling.

However, for the rest of the southward journey and the whole of the return trip they had to rely on man-hauling.

This meant killing the ponies early (and starting man-hauling earlier) to feed the dogs for no obvious benefit to the overall expedition.

Thereafter, twelve men in three groups would ascend the glacier and begin the crossing of the polar plateau, using man-hauling.

Man-hauling is suitable for short journeys in mountainous country; mechanically propelled sledges have not yet proved themselves.

However, Scott relied chiefly on man-hauling in 1911-12 because ponies could not ascend the glacier midway to the Pole.

In a memorandum of 1908, Scott presented his view that man-hauling to the South Pole was impossible and that motor traction was needed.

Manhauling, sometimes expressed as man-hauling: is the pulling forward of sledges, trucks or other load-carrying vehicles by human power unaided by animals or machines.

However, Scott always intended to rely on man-hauling for the polar plateau, believing it impossible to ascend the Beardmore Glacier with motors or with animals.

Man-hauling would still be needed on the Polar Plateau, on the assumption that motors and animals could not ascend the crevassed Beardmore Glacier.

Scott planned to reach the Pole from Ross Island, using ponies and three motorised sledges, with a few dogs in support, then by man-hauling his sledges.

In September, Mertz, Ninnis and Herbert Murphy formed a survey party, man-hauling to the south-east of Aladdin's cave.

Crean, considered one of the toughest men in the expedition, had led a pony across the Barrier and had thus been saved much of the hard labour of man-hauling.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard in his analysis of the expedition estimated that even under optimistic assumptions the summit rations contained only a little more than half the calories actually required for the man-hauling of sledges.

The clarity with which Crane lays out the action of these deep cultural forces is admirable, and the sense of crushing inevitability that the cult of man-hauling gave to Scott's final demise is palpable.

In the following years he continued to express the British preference for man-hauling (the practice of propelling sledges by manpower, unassisted by animals), a view he maintained until very late in his Antarctic career.

Neither could ski or drive the few sled dogs they had with them, and when they headed toward the pole (man-hauling along with Edward Wilson, who later perished with Scott), progress was excruciatingly slow.

He had been defeated because, by contrast, Amundsen was a mere glory-seeker who had concealed his true intentions, had used dogs rather than relying on honest man-hauling and had slaughtered these same dogs for food.