Page 17 - 2010 AMA Autumn

arrested, the other two members of the team set up the necessary belay devices to rescue him, and by the end of the day each person had had at least one chance to experience hanging around in a crevasse and several opportunities to perform the rescue; we were ready for our first peak.
Foura.m.onthe4thdayandwesetoffin3 teams to climb the 3925m summit of the Ulrichshorn. By 5 a.m. we had reached the glacier and were roped up again- ever wary of crevasses but reassured that there had been no recent snow fall to hide them. At
just after 6 a.m. the dawn broke with purple and
golden fingers of light extending over the summits of peaks all around us. In the dis- tance dark storm clouds were looming and under the instruction of our highly experi- enced guide Simon, we quickened the pace. Reaching the summit was an awe- some feeling, on one side the glacier fell away, on the other a rock face, almost verti- cal, dropped for around a thousand metres. The views were stunning. Was I out of my comfort zone? Certainly; Was I loving every minute of it? Absolutely! A few sharp words from Simon reminded us that most acci- dents occur to climbers on the descent after summiting and encouraged us to pay even greater attention on the way down than on the way up. Thankfully we descended with- out incident and arrived on the Mischabelhütte at around 8.30 am where we were welcomed with a large pot of tea and a well earned nap. The weather closed
in shortly afterwards and we were glad to see the rest of the teams arrive in good order having beaten the
worst of the weather.
Sadly, the high winds on the peaks meant we were unable to climb the Weissmiess- our second intended objective-
and, after arriving back in Saas Fee town, we were back to practicing the belays and pulley systems of crevasse rescue again. As Simon pointed out, though, ‘peaks mean nothing if you can’t get your mates out of a crevasse’, and all in all we agreed the week had been a resounding success.
Every member of our team was awarded their Alpine Mountain Proficiency award andmostarealreadyplanningtoreturnto the Alps next year to build on the experi- ence and work towards the next level, the Alpine Mountain Leader. The aim, of course, is to be able to introduce more sol- diers to the stunning scenery and fantastic experiences available in this truly beautiful part of the world. I would recommend the AMP course as part of JSAM to anyone who has an interest in climbing alpine mountain peaks and would encourage them to apply, via the JSMTC at Indefatigable, for JSAM 2010. Because anyone stood on top of one of those peaks would be unable to say, “this is sh*t boss, I’m getting out.”