Page 25 - AMA Winter 2023/24

SO, WHAT DID WE DO?
Despite the expedition company bravely offering to still put on the expedition, we ensured it was cancelled. There are many factors for this, additional strain (potentially) on an already struggling healthcare system, the optics of even just being there in this most painful of times for those that hold the High Atlas at home and the very real fact that the leaders of our trekking company were much needed to escort rescue and recovery teams in to the Atlas, after all who knows the mountains better than they do!
After picking up my thrown laptop and freshly kicked furniture from the frustration of our bad luck, I quite rightly put myself back in my place. Yes, we had lost our expedition that had taken many hours of planning, but against the backdrop of the people of Morocco this was a mere triviality and I very much see it that way, as does my team.
CHOICES!
At this point, sitting with a coffee I was faced with two options; do nothing and wait for next year, or try and salvage something out of the trip and at least give the team something positive out of what was a profoundly negative time. To date, my experience of writing a JSATFA was just the one, my experience as the Unit Adventure Training Officer (UATO), a morning’s online course and reading lots of ‘stuff’ on the AT Group website. Fortunately, there are people like David Wise around (the AT Group representative for the Southwest), who in short order assisted me to get a weeklong expedition to the Lake District organised, including the delivery of the Summer Mountain Foundation (SMF) course to six of the original High Atlas team.
Given the gravity of the start of this piece I do not feel it appropriate to go into detail about our course/expedition in the Lakes, suffice to say it was challenging and gave
Looking back to Scafell on the Blacksail Pass
all of my team a chance to reflect on what had transpired over the previous few weeks. The mountains can be a harsh and unforgiving place but they can also provide peace and the space to gain perspective. The High Atlas has not disappeared. We are booked to go there again next September. Our appreciation of the place will be different but the opportunity to go there is still something to be incredibly grateful for.
MLT group pushing on for another QMD
“Without mountains, we might find ourselves relieved that we can avoid the pain of the ascent, but we will forever miss the thrill of the summit.
And in such a terribly scandalous trade-off, it is the absence of pain that becomes the thief of life.”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
ARMY MOUNTAINEER / 25