Page 31 - 2011 AMA Winter

Lost valley
any ill effects. So as I fought from my sleeping bag to dive to the door of the hut and hurled up in a monumental fashion for the second time that night it was clear the plan was due another change. The consequences of my ill- ness were unfortunately slightly more severe than those of a trekking student. In the morn- ing – at 0400 it was more like the night – the rest set off for Point Lenana to continue their acclimatisation and to gain an objective. The mere 200m of ascent may as well have been overhanging for the likelihood of me achieving it and so I languished in a sorry state awaiting sunrise and a trip in the mountaineer’s least favourite direction.
Improve and adapt
As the sun rose the rest of the climbing team reached the summit with time to stand and watch in awe of the view for miles around from this isolated and commanding pinna- cle. Due to the stipulation from the High Risk and Remote Presentation that the climb to Nelion and Batian must be conducted by two independent teams each headed by an RCI to facilitate self rescue should the need arise the race for the summit was off. So following their early morning walk team con- ducted some ice axe and crampon training on the dry glacier on route to the pinnacles to give the guys a feel for the mountain and then the group headed back down.
After leaving the trekkers the day prior we finally met up with them as we arrived at Shipton’s camp, named after the explora- tory mountaineering legend Eric Shipton, who made the mountain’s second ascent; and it was from here that they intended to make their summit bid. Leaving early the next morning they made their way painstak- ingly to the top arriving themselves for sun- rise whilst at the same time Toby had taken our chief guide to attempt a one day round of the twin summits in a day, avoiding the nasty bivvy on the return. Reunited in Ship- ton Camp we made our way down the trail on the Sirimon Route, a pleasant but steep end to our walking experience. Seeing oth- ers dragging themselves slowly up towards Shipton’s Camp was a reminder of what we must have looked like on our ascent.
So in the end we had managed to get 10 people to the walking summit and only 1 to the true summit and against our aims of 12 and 6 this statistically brought us to 83% and 16% successes respectively. But this belies the experiences that we gained along the way, the learning and training for stu- dents and instructors alike. Pushing all out- side our comfort zones with the instructors having to contingency plan like 10 men, in the end the team had a fantastic experience all over and for me it will make the summit that much sweeter when I go back and try it again: watch this space!
ARMY MOUNTAINEER 29