Expedition Reports

This was 2 R IRISH’s main Type 3 AT activity for the current trg yr and was designed to give all serving members the opportunity to experience an arduous trek in a completely new area.  13 members of 2 R IRISH took part and they were joined by three members from Queens University OTC. The

Our journey starts at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and finishes at Reykjavik, Iceland. Day 1 (JSASTC, Gosport, 9 Jul 18) Five odd things we’ve learnt as we prepare to sail across the Atlantic Ocean (authored by LCpl Rebecca Lefort) Exercise PACIFIC LONGBOW is the British Army’s major adventurous training sailing exercise, circumnavigating the Atlantic and

My first military trip to the Alps was on the Joint Services Alpine Meet, staged from a campsite in Saas Grund in 2009. It was run slightly differently to previous iterations in as much that the Joint Services Mountain Training Centre had intervened to assist. Little did I know at the time that this marked

Ex NORTHERN DOLOMITE was a trekking expedition conducted in the Dolomite mountains of Northern Italy. Amongst glorious Italian scenery, 20 regular and reserve soldiers (16 from 71 Engineer Regiment) covered over 6,000m of ascent (and the reciprocal knee buckling descent) over a 7-day expedition. The temperature and the gradient of some of the climbs proved

The Kungsleden (King’s Trail) in Northern Sweden is 460km in length and is the best known trail in that country. Over its length it traverses high mountains, open fell, forest and also crosses a number of lakes. It was to the most northerly section, 250km within the Arctic Circle that 3RWELSH Ex DRAGON LAPONE headed

  “When I started this adventure, I did not think after a week’s training, it would be so natural to be in an environment so alien to me. I was left literally breathless in its beauty and gasping for more!!” WO2 Wayne Dunn On 23rd June, 11 reservists and one regular soldier boarded a flight

In July 2018, a group of regular and reservist personnel from 77th Brigade travelled to the stunning Dolomites mountain range in Italy for a demanding adventurous training week – Exercise Tiger Heights 2018. The adventure training provided an ideal opportunity to test members of the brigade against the challenging terrain of northeastern Italy whilst, building

Exercise COCKNEY YEOMAN BUCCANEER was an adventurous training (AT) exercise down the west coast of Great Britain using the Royal Armoured Corps’ yacht, Ajax, from the 16th to the 28th June 2018.  It was designed to introduce novices to the joys of sailing (myself included) in a two stage journey, with different crews for each

Reservist Sophie Montagne, shares her experiences of this ground-breaking expedition across Antarctica, proudly supported by the Ulysses Trust. As we touched down on the blue ice runway of Union Glacier base camp and the Ilyushin plane’s doors opened, we braced ourselves for that first blast of the Antarctic chill. But it wasn’t the cold, it

EXPEDITION 1: Dates: 15th – 31st July 2017 Through July and August 2017, 28 enthusiastic participants, mostly deriving from HQ 2nd Medical Brigade, embarked on an adventure to the southern hemisphere, between latitudes 33’ and 41’ in the high Andes of Chile to conquer snow covered volcanoes on skis. It was broken down into two

As Europe returned to work after the summer holidays, officers from National Reserve Headquarters Royal Artillery (NRHQ RA) headed south on Exercise BAVARIAN EAGLE. We were bound for Haus Magnus in Wertach, which incidentally, is a comfortable, well run Adventurous Training Group (ATG) lodge ideally placed for mountain hiking in the Allgäu region. Eleven of

The Rolex Fastnet Race 2017 was the largest offshore yacht race in history, featuring some 400 yachts and 3000 crew members from 29 countries, competing over a 1120km course from Cowes to Plymouth via the Fastnet Rock off the Southern Irish coast. Thanks largely to the Ulysses Trust’s generous sponsorship of three members of the

The Upper Valais region in Switzerland, with routes up to 3,000 meters altitude and surrounding the magnificent Groesser Aletsch Glacier, was selected for a summer mountaineering expedition, exercise ALPINE BULL, which took place between 24th and 30th July 2017. Twelve personnel with a mixture of background, qualifications, and experience from 11 Infantry Brigade and headquarters

Introduction On the 16th June 17, myself and a team of mountaineers left Northern Ireland heading to Chamonix, France for what would be one of the most memorial experiences of my life.  Flying into Lyon it was late evening when we arrived in Chamonix. Despite the long journey, seeing the mansion that our exercise planner

A day or so after having returned from our two week Annual Camp in Denmark a rather unexpected and exciting opportunity presented itself to me, sailing! Being a fairly sporty person I am always up for trying something new but this was something I had not even considered before. I quickly learnt that the Royal

Between 17th-24th November 2017, eighteen volunteer reservists from 212 Field Hospital undertook a rock climbing expedition to the Costa Blanca region of Spain. The aim of this expedition was to challenge the participants mentally and physically, using rock climbing as a medium to do this. The group consisted of greatly varied ranks, ages, and –

Thanks to the likes of Jacques Cousteau and our own Sir David Attenborough, for the uninitiated, talk of scuba diving may conjure up pictures of kaleidoscope coloured reefs, the inimitable ‘Finding Nemo’ clownfish and a plethora of sharks and weird and wonderful fish.  However, reality and fantasy are rarely synchronised as the members of Exercise

In June 2017, a crew consisting of soldiers from The Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry took part in an expedition to sail the Royal Armoured Corps Yacht Club boat, Yacht Ajax, from Gosport to Barmouth in Wales. Named ‘Exercise Sea Wolf’, reflecting the unit’s cap-badge of a grey wolf, the aim of the expedition was