Page 17 - 2006/07 AMA Winter

Having just taken up my new post at Trails End Camp in Canada my feet are just coming down to land after the most amazing 3 years of my life and it all start­ ed when I became hooked on the Himalayas and was then inspired by the leader of the British Services Kangchenjunga Expedition in 2000, of which I was part.
The Himalaya is the most amazing arena for adventure, challenge, development of character and many other per­ sonal attributes but most of all for bringing together a team of men and women in pursuit of one of its many glorious goals and few other undertakings can fit the aims of our Adventurous Training better than an expedition to its mountains.
The inspiring person I mention is now Capt Steve Jackson RN, then Lt Cdr and Steve was not the normal run of the mill leader who you may expect to find central to the physical climbing on the mountain, he chose to leave that to the array of accom­ plished climbers within the team and focus his attention
at the end-ef
THE EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME
By W01(SMI) Dave Bunting APTC
With the hook now firmly in place I bided my time and waited for the right moment and mountain and that came when a good friend from the Marines, Warrant Officer Dave Pearce, summitted Everest in
he said with excitement ‘I will support you all the way if you do this’, I knew the door was opening to something special.
My initial focus was around making a solid plan which would survive anything and everything so I spent the whole summer researching and probing ideas. I decided that in order to get the AMA, Army, right people and
key sponsors onside I needed to design something
was
on firstly getting together the
very best team he could and
then steering them towards
success. His character, the
words he said and actions he
took sunk deeply into my
memory with one comment
sinking deeper than others - May 2003. The next morning I
‘pick a team considering com­ patibility over ability’. I left his expedition already decided in my own mind that one day I would lead my own big expe­ dition to one of the world’s 14
8000m peaks.
went into work and declared to my then boss Maj Nick Challinor that I was going to organise an Army Mountaineering Association (AMA) expedition to Mount Everest as the regular army having not climbed the big hill for almost 30 years. His reac­ tion was key to getting the project off of the ground when