Page 24 - 2022 AMA Summer

MISCARTICLE
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
By Paul Lane
Better late than never, this contribu- tion to the journal is long overdue. It is sparked by not one, but two
articles in the last edition – it is a great publication – thanks!
The first article was the HQ Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) expedition to Mont Blanc last year. Hats off for a successful international team ascent, it’s never easy. This caught my eye because 30 years previous, I led a similar exercise from HQ 1st (British) Corps, the ARRC’s predecessor. At that time the Corps Head- quarters was in Bielefeld, Germany and it commanded four British Divisions. Yes, the Army was bigger then! Earlier in the year, 1991, we had planned, dispatched and supported, the 1st Armoured Division to the first Gulf War in the liberation of Kuwait. So, we were ready for a break.
As SO2 Plans, I got together with SO3 Ops as we both had alpine experience and invited novices to join us in an attempt to climb Mont Blanc. We too used the superb, switch back, snow ridge of Dôme de Neige in training, before going on to summit via the Goûter hut; but your picture is better, and flag much larger, than ours!
HQ 1st (BR) Corps had a much more illustrious climber who preceded us. Colonel John Hunt (later Lord Hunt, and later still, Vice President of the AMA) was working as a Colonel in HQ 1 (BR) Corps when he led the first ascent of Everest in 1953. He carried the HQ 1 (BR) Corps pennant/flag to the South Col and beyond. Consequently, having taken our modest expedition and the 1st (BR) Corps pennant up Mont Blanc, I wrote to him, to let him know that mountaineers remained active in the Corps Headquarters. I received a delightful hand-written reply: ‘my brief period of service as Colonel GS 1st British Corps has always remained a good memory... Congratulations on your ascent of Mont Blanc... you must be facing a most rewarding time working on plans for the ARRC’. Indeed, at that time I was in the embryonic nucleus of HQ ARRC in the cellars beneath HQ 1 (BR) Corps; full circle.
Mt Blanc – HQ 1 (BR) Corps team – 1991
The second article that prompted this belated contribution, was the ‘signing off’ article by Duncan Francis – 39 years of mountaineering with the AMA!
I joined the AMA in 1978, unashamedly, because I could get a £50 grant towards an expedition. Having no alpine experience, I went to the library (no search engines then) with a university friend to find an atlas and applied for a grant saying we would climb three mountains we recognised: Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn and the Eiger. We only achieved one that year, the Matterhorn by the Hörnli ridge without a guide, but we were both only 21 at the time. In the next couple of years, I went on two AMA expeditions, another
to the Alps and an ambitious one to Mt Huntington in Alaska – great experiences, but since 1981 I never got round to other AMA activities, save for reading the journal and retaining my membership!
Despite not having committed to a life of mountaineering, it is in the blood, and recently I rediscovered the joys of the great Scottish ridges. I first went to the Isle of Skye in 1976, aged 18. We mainly climbed around Corrie Lagan; I was pleasantly surprised to find a very old photo of us on the South Crack on the Inn Pin. Then, about 10 years ago, my university friend from the Matterhorn completed all the Munros and decided that we had some unfinished scrambling business. We
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