Page 8 - 2012 AMA Summer

BRITISH SERVICES
ANTARCTIC
EXPEDITION 2012
The Quadrennial Joint Services Mountaineering Expedition
Lt Col Paul Edwards
Shortly after Christmas 2011 twenty four service per- sonnel from across the three services departed for the Antarctic Peninsula. They were deploying on the Brit-
ish Services Antarctic Expedition 2012 the ‘Spirit of Scott’ expedition which took place in the centenary year of Capt Scott’s Terra Nova expedition1. Thirteen of the team were members of the Army Mountaineering Association, who had
the lead on this quadrennial Joint Services Mountaineering Expe- dition, and the team had a rank range from Cpl to Lt Col with a full spectrum of time-served. For almost all of the team this was the culmination of two years of intense planning and training which had begum at the initial selection weekend in North Wales.
Shortly after the last Joint Services Mountaineering Expedition the Joint Service Mountaineering Committee identified the appropriate- ness of an expedition to Antarctica in 2012 and the planning wheels were set in motion. Capt Scott journeyed to Antarctica in the name of science and exploration and it was fitting to follow in the same vein to commemorate their achievements, but the area they vis- ited has now been well documented and has limited appropriate mountaineering objectives. The Antarctic Peninsula, however, is a mountaineer’s paradise, not fully explored, and a focal point for cli- mate change research as the fastest warming place on this planet.
Therefore, BSAE 2012, it was decided, would deploy to the Antarc- tic Peninsula in the “Spirit of Scott”, “seeking to further the bounds of human exploration and knowledge.” This was, the Higher Man- agement Committee felt, entirely in keeping with the ethos and
spirit of the original Scott expedi-
tion. By going to a remote and largely unexplored area
and attempting first ascents of unclimbed mountains, alongside a cutting edge science programme, BSAE 2012 would be worthy of the strap line ‘Spirit of Scott’.
The further South you go on the Antarctic Peninsula, the less explored the area is, and after several military expeditions to Bra- bant island and the Wienke and Danco Coast area it was decided to go further South to the Loubet Coast. Getting there is difficult and expensive, with pack ice and poor weather being major constraints. To be assured of independent transport and support it was decided that the expedition should charter a steel hulled motor yacht to get the team to the peninsula and to remain there for the duration to support the expedition. However, as the expedition numbered 24, and the yacht would only accommodate 12, a complex logistic chain was put together that involved flying the second 12 down the peninsula to the British Antarctic Survey base at Rothera, where the yacht would rendezvous with them.
6 ARMY MOUNTAINEER