In a ten-hour feat of endurance, they climbed to the summit via the southeast ridge, beating incoming bad weather that sadly scuppered the chances of six colleagues. Speaking to Soldier after her return, LCpl Alder said that aside from the physical demands, the expedition had brought home some key soldiering lessons too…
"You see so many examples of teamwork and leadership when you’re on the mountain. Sgt Beckett was the exped 2iC and led our summit attempt. He is a fantastic leader. Once he has an objective he goes for it. It would have been easy, with the weather window closing to sit back, take stock and think. But if we hadn’t summited on that day or were even a couple of hours later we wouldn’t have done it at all.
Making difficult decisions and sticking to them is critical. And sometimes leaders have to go against the consensus of the team. When we got back down to camp four from the top I was absolutely fragged, however Tim said we had an hour’s rest and then had to move. I just wanted to sleep but it was in my best interests to keep going – you don’t want to spend any more time in the death zone than necessary.
The planning that went into the exped was fantastic. Around 90 people applied when it was first announced three years ago. We did a lot of build-up training in the Alps and then in November we became the first army team to summit Himlung Himal. That taught us so much because we had a lot of altitude sickness. So for Everest we were much more disciplined in terms of our pace and allowed more time, including six weeks of acclimatisation at Base Camp. That meant we had almost no problem with sickness.
Good medical support is key and our two medics were phenomenal. They really looked after the team. We saw a lot of climbers in a bad way, highlighting how important it is to have that expertise to rely on when you are operating at altitude.
It taught me I’m a lot fitter than I thought. It’s a lot physically – especially the consecutive days of climbing after you’ve left Base Camp. I also realised I’m good at not overthinking too much, which is useful in mountaineering because you don’t psyche yourself out about the things that could go wrong, you just crack on.
We hope other units can model what this exped achieved. We now have an essential knowledge base we can share. AT teaches you so much about yourself and teamwork that you can bring back to work."
