Page 58 - The Light Dragoon 2024

This year’s Exercise White Knight 40 if it is to be the last the cavalry do, can go down as one of the all-time greats. Excelling both on and off the slopes, the Light Dragoons put in an epic perfor- mance. However, before we get to that I must take you back to where it all started. On a wet and windy Catterick morning, having loaded up all our kit and equipment as well as some of the regimental fencing equipment the WK 40 Alpine Ski Team were ready to deploy. The team consisted of Lt Griffiths, Lt Ferguson, Cpl Neighbour, LCpl Robinson, Tpr Davies, Tpr Bulmer, Tpr Smith and Tpr Godwin, morale was high as reports of snow being dumped in Verbier were coming through. However, no British Army exercise is complete without a transport plan that fails at some point. After attempting to get the Combi Van to start, it eventually spluttered to life and already behind schedule, we started our 20 Hour journey to Verbier Switzerland. After a few Pink Floyd albums and a thousand kilometres or so, the Light Dragoons Alpine Ski team arrived in the Alps. This saw the start of the side quests with the team rescuing a disgruntled French man who had crashed his car as the snow was coming down heavily.
Having fought our way up to Verbier village on some very snowy mountain roads we arrived at our Chalet, The Dahu Hut. This year the team had to really slum it in our 11-bed ski-in ski-out chalet with mountain
Alpine Dragoons
views. After the surprisingly arduous task of having to dig our way through 2 feet of fresh powder to access the Chalet we had moved in and were free to spend the rest of the day exploring the local cultural sights, notably Pub Mont Fort and Le Fer a Cheval. After the obligatory introductory briefs and admin, the skiers were chomping at the bit to get on the slopes. The first day of reckoning came swiftly where each skier was judged by a board of instructors and put into a skiing group levelled 1 – 10.
All the non-novice LDs were in the top four teams, a good place to start. From there the training days blurred into one with the experienced skiers within the team refreshing and re-learning the essen- tials of skiing. The incredible early snow allowed for enjoyment of some powder and off-piste skiing. Meanwhile the novice skiers put in the hard yards with some very impressive development in
the first few weeks.
The Regimental Journal of The Light Dragoons
Regimental Sport Alpine Skiing
Extremely warm and the cause of much envy
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