Just over a year earlier, American Robert E. Peary reached the North Pole amidst great controversy. Critics claimed he made speeds that were unattainable (several expeditions matched them, including Naomi Uemura's 1980s solo trek---and he didn't have the advantage of Bob Bartlett's trailbreaking parties). In 1983, I was allowed in the National Archives as one of the first to analyze the Peary 1909 Polar Diary since it had been sequestered by the family during the controversies in the 19teens. I published the results in "The Historian," and concluded that the appearance of the diary showed no fraud, no after-the-fact manipulation, that all pages were written in the same style and ink; that he indeed missed some pages at the pole and didn't re-start the diary til later (which I found entirely understandable because they wanted to plant the flag and get the hell out before warm water melted the ice behind them and trapped them), and so on.
Before there were astronauts, Peary and Amundsen were the last of the great explorers.
Some say Scott had much, much worse weather than Amundsen.
In any case, I recommend the brilliant British tv series “The Last Place on Earth.”