Page 20 - 2017 AMA Summer

Ex DRAGON CHILEAN VOLCANO
On 20 Jan 17, 10 soldiers from 30 Sig Regt deployed to Chile to attempt to become the first British Military expedition to reach the summit of Ojos Del Salado, this was to be
the culmination of 14 months planning and 12 months of training. Ojos is the world’s highest active volcano at 6,893m and second highest summit in the Southern and Western Hemispheres, it is also ranked in the top 50 most prominent mountains (height from mountain base to summit). For comparison, Mt Everest is 8,848m. Statistically the success rate for summiting Ojos is 25%, compared to 27% on Mt Everest. So, people who go to Everest have a higher chance of successfully reaching the summit than those attempting Ojos Del Salado. During the early planning stages we discovered that Lt Col Smith (REME) was leading an Army HQ expedition (Ex TIGER BURNING BRIGHT) with the same objective. Unfortunately for them, due to illness of instructors, they were not able to summit Ojos, but did gain the first British Military ascent of Nevado San Franciso (6,018m) and had an amazing trip. Lt Col Smith also provided information that helped the successful planning of our expedition. I would like to thank him for that, as I know he was preparing for another attempt himself.
LCpl Ben Willlett was asked to produce this article from the diary that he kept whilst on Ex DCV.
As soon as I saw Ex DCV advertising for participants I knew that I wanted to be part of it. We were assured that the objective was within the reach of novices so I committed to the trip and the pre- training packages that were essential for final selection. We left sunny England on the 20 Jan 17 and began our long transatlantic flight to Santiago, we were all excited about the challenges that lay ahead. As a team we had been training for this moment for almost a year and felt ready to test our skills and resolve. After the previous attempt to summit Ojos by Army HQ there was some concern about the difficulty, but we felt prepared and wanted to be the first military team to get to the top. However, after an informative 3 days in San Pedro de Atacama; acclimatising, visiting local historical sites and geographical features, it became apparent that moun- taineering in Chile was very different from that in the UK. Altitude suddenly became an issue. We’d all received concise briefs about the effects of altitude sickness and recognising the signs and symptoms, but I doubt many of us novices thought it would actually hit us. Why should it? We’re all young and fit soldiers. How wrong we were.
We left San Pedro to begin the mountaineering phase of Ex DCV and moved to a campsite 3kms south of a small settlement called Guatin. Guatin is approx. 30kms north of San Pedro and at a height of 3,000m. Some of our group began to feel the effect of altitude on their bodies. Our normally relaxed walk into the hills and mountains turned into a tiring bimble that Grandma Willett would be ashamed of. However, our instructors had organised a good programme for acclimatisation that incorporated long recovery periods after each hike.
Our original plan had been to remain in Guatin for 3 days then move to a higher elevation at Machuca’s Rocks Campsite. Unfortunately
18 ARMY MOUNTAINEER