Page 113 - RAPTC Year of 2019

EX TIGER ARRC (GREENLAND)
As a mainstream RAPTCI for all of my career I have often dabbled in adventurous training. However, opportunities of this nature which I will describe in this narrative do not come around too often and to be expedition leader of EX TIGER ARRC has definitely become the highlight of my fourteen-year RAPTC career.
The task of organising an overseas exploratory alpine mountaineering expedition was two years in the planning and with ARRC Sp Bn being a minor unit, this created extra problems as these sorts of expeditions usually happen at Corps and Joint Service level, so for the Bn to take this on was a huge undertaking. As with all AT you have to start at the basics so before we even thought of Greenland, we engaged in delivering Distributed Training. This took the form of basic summer mountaineering, trying to pick and develop a single team from the outset is futile, posting’s, career courses and injuries will see to this. Over time we built a workable rapport with the Army Foundation Training Centre’s, in particular Inverness who supported us throughout the training phase and in return we now have a Pte soldier rotating through a six-month detachment to support ATG.
Generally, the conditions we could expect in Greenland during July would be stable, a dominant high pressure sits over most of the vast ice cap, however we had to develop our soldiers in order to administrate themselves for the worst case, which could be a storm lasting days, and no other place other than Scotland in the winter can produce these challenging conditions. Due to the fact the expedition was exploratory and the nearest basic medical care facility was over 5 hours away even if you could even get an air lift, we had to satisfy the High Risk & Remote panel, this was done in the last frantic few days leading up to the departure of the expedition.
The main deployment which lasted about fifteen days was amazing from start to finish, we had three highly experienced Alpine Mountain Leaders, including Glen Bloomer from the RAPTC, and their knowledge and expertise contributed hugely to the success of the expedition. The journey throughout was breathtaking, we
had two separate base camps of which the second was only accessible by an incredible journey by boat through the fjords, in which we passed huge glaciers and hundreds of icebergs, we even came across two whales.
The further and deeper we travelled the bigger the mountain range grew in size, not comparable to the Himalayas as in outright size but throughout the expedition we were based at sea level which exposed ourselves even more to the vastness of Greenland. Greenland is huge with many places unexplored and no building’s or trees to help gauge distance, this coupled with inadequate mapping added to the pressure on the AML’s decision making.
The Exped was a huge success, the location coupled with the remoteness meant the exped fulfilled all its aims, we had first tour Pte soldiers whilst on the Alpine Mountaineering Foundation course completing confirmed first accents on a HR&R exploratory alpine mountaineering expedition, this hasn’t been done before at this level.
The planning, organisation and delivery of EX TIGER ARRC has a direct link to challenges which we will face on operations, we succeeded in developing the leadership skills of our young soldiers as well as enhancing their physical and mental robustness. EX TIGER ARRC achieved this in an abundance.
WO2 (QMSI) B Bynorth RAPTC
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ALLIED RAPID REACTION CORPS SUPPORT BATTALION (ARRC SP BN)
WO2 B Bynorth RAPTC & WO2 G Bloomer RAPTC
ARRC Sp Bn Greenland