Page 18 - 2006/07 AMA Winter

The final look at the summit of Everest.
challenging, diverse, ground breaking and inclusive of not only the hard core gladiators but the young, both men and women. At the same time I quickly needed to surround myself with a small core of impressive and committed people who I could rely on throughout the most difficult of ordeals both during the plan­ ning period and on the side of the world's highest mountain. Interested was one of my closest friends John Doyle, now a civilian instructor hav­ ing served 16 years and leav­
ing as the most accomplished high altitude mountaineer in the services having summitted 2 8000m peaks without oxy­ gen and still a keen AMA member. Once he showed interest I knew there would be no stopping us and was confi­ dent we could make these first steps together and influence enough support to make this work. The huge finance moun­ tain was my next considera­ tion and I needed someone with a head for figures, intelli­ gence, contacts outside the military, the ability to sell the
expedition to anyone but above all I needed to have absolute trust they would pur­ sue their task relentlessly. In addition to this the person needed to be able to hold their own as a team member. No one fitted that bill better than my life long best mate who was now serving as a pilot in the Air Corps, Woody Woodhouse. Pete Longbottom and Ian Rivers completed the initial core and the involvement of this group from the start allowed me many more nights of sleep
than I may have had without them over the next 3 years!
Over the next few weeks and months the idea developed and my core of supporters was in place and growing. John drew my focus to the West Ridge route on Everest, a line unclimbed by any Brit, although attempted by JS in 88 and 92, and a fitting chal­ lenge for the type of team we wanted to assemble. This route would fit exactly what we wanted with hard technical climbing, isolation from other teams and it would demand a huge team effort to achieve it. The other elements of the pro­ ject unfolded and as wished from the beginning a Development and Junior Team grew into the exciting projects which are described in separate articles within this journal.
Due to high quality support from other members I was luckily able to stay heavily involved in all 3 teams
Camp 1 at the foot of the French spur.
16 ARMY MOUNTAINEER