Hey guys, I didn't really post that I was going to be away for two weeks, because I'm not well known enough for it to have an effect, but I thought I might share some of my experiences during that time. For the first week, I was in Spain with my college, I won't go into much detail, but there were many good and bad points about it. The second week I was doing my Gold Duke of Edinburgh's award expedition with my Air Training Corps (Royal Air Force Cadets) squadron. I thought I might share an account I wrote for another message board with you guys.
For those who don't know much about the DofE expeditions it basically entails a small team living in wild country for a period of four days and travelling a huge amount of distance. You have to be self sufficient and carry 4 days worth of clothes, food survival equipment and your tents with you. My team started off with the five of us, here's the account:
***
Day 1 on top of our first mountain, my team of 5 got caught in a blizzard of hail and snow, we sought shelter behind the wall of an old ruin. Already we were in deep trouble, one of my group couldn’t walk more than 50 metres without collapsing to the ground in pain due to the fact he had torn his tendons, another member was entering into hypothermic shock. The visibility levels were poor and we couldn’t see more than 10 metres in front of us. It was getting colder and we toyed with the idea of phoning mountain rescue, except officially we aren't allowed cell phones on Duke of Edinburgh Award expeditions and the only two people with phones had either no credit or no battery. Things were looking very bleak, until in the distance we heard voices, we quickly sent a scout over to investigate, after 10 minutes, which seemed like an eternity, he returned with a group of hikers trapped in the snow as well. Unlike us, they weren’t carrying a weeks worth of food, clothes and equipment, and they were able to take our injured members ruck sacks, and together we managed to navigate our way off the mountain.
At the same time however, there were two other teams lost elsewhere in the mountains. On our way down, we ran into another one of those teams, they were in equally bad shape, but they joined up with us in our descent. Things took another turn for the worse though, in amongst the confusion our groups got separated, my team managed to return to base, the hikers also escaped the mountain, but the other cadet team got standard, we were at the bottom before we realised. Immediately a rescue party was sent up to try and find the other team. Upon their arrival the group was found in a state of exhaustion, the entire team in survival bags, entering into shock. Thankfully they were brought down without any major injury, and they were housed indoors over night.
Day 2.
The hypothermic member of our team is fully recovered, the member with injured legs decides to continue on.
We continued on our expedition, travelling through wild country, everything save the clothes I was now currently wearing absolutely drenched, and weighing down my rucksack incredibly.. Within the first half hour of our journey we encountered our first problem of day 2, a deep, fast flowing river that SHOULD have been crossable, except the torrential rain had meant that it was much more hazardous than it should have been. After several failed attempts at crossing it, (which I might add some of them were very comical) we had to take a 3 kilometre detour to find a bridge. Continuing on, we had a fairly alright day, except the previously injured members condition worsened, and we had to detour to locate the only house nearby and utilise their phone to arrange an evac for him. The member remained and the now group of four pressed on. We met another impossible river and had to make another 3Km journey to find a safe crossable point. The day was running on, we'd been walking since 9am and it was approaching 7:30pm, we weren’t far from the area we'd chosen to camp in, just one thing stood in our way. A mountain with an incredible gradient. No higher than the one on day 1, but a much steeper climb. Slowly we pressed on, urging ourselves up the mountain, every ounce of energy drained from our bodies, it was pure torture. I could feel myself going dizzy, the air was freezing cold, and we were loosing light rapidly, 9pm came, and we were still climbing. My only top layers were a jumper and T shirt due to the rest being soaked, and slowly I could feel myself becoming ill.
At roughly 9:15 we reached the top, the sense of victory was incredible, but it wasn’t over yet, we had to get over it. Camping out on the mountain overnight would have been a very bad move, and we couldn’t have turned back. And I was feeling a lot worse. As we continued to descend, I began to loose my footing more and more regularly, I began to wretch frequently, feeling as if I was going to throw up any moment, the exhaustion and cold were getting to me. It felt like the world was spinning, but I just knew that I had to get to the bottom of the mountain, otherwise I was screwed.
After what seemed like an eternity we made it to the bottom, and continued for about another km to find a place to camp where we had a stream nearby for water, we still had to cook that evening. By more luck than judgment, we stumbled across another team's camp who had taken another route, acting quickly, they stripped my rucksack off me and through me into a sleeping bag in one of their already set up tents, they packed 3 people into the tent with me to keep me warm and began cooking me a meal, without their help I would have become dangerously ill that night. All this happened at 10pm.
Day 3.
Things were much easier from here on, I was fully recovered and ready to press on. We bid farewell to the other team who now had to tackle the mountain we had beaten the previous day. We continued on. If I'm honest, day 3 was very easy by comparison, no major hardships, except one member of our team was constantly complaining about his ankle and kept stopping, promising that he would remain and not continue. Bull****, pardon my French. There was no way we were leaving him, after a good few strong words, we pressed on as a team, and we reached our next camping area by 3pm, a welcome contrast to the other 2 days. We were now actually on a campsite, rather than wild country, the worst of our exhibition over, and as such had access to an actual toilet and sink. It felt like a 5 star hotel to me. That day I went to sleep at 7:30pm and slept till 7:00 am the next day.
Day 4
The last day of exhibition. My ankle had swollen, and I couldn’t fit it into my boots with the compulsory 2 pairs of socks to protect from blisters. As such, one pair had to come off, a risky business. But necessary. Our route progressed through wild country later in the day, though closer to population than day 1 and 2. The guy who had complained about his ankle had now shut up, after realising we weren’t prepared to take any of his crap when his ankle wasn’t that bad. My ankle on the other hand, was in a lot of pain, but I said nothing. Not much else to say, a fairly uneventful day, we continued on, spirits wearing down, everyone exhausted and just wanting to get home. We finally met our ride back to civilisation on the outskirts of a forest at 5pm.
There were several funny events during the entire journey, including coming across a bus stop on day 3 which said "No busses serve this stop" then there was every other team member falling nearly waste deep into the marshes because they weren’t patient enough to go round...
Expedition 1 complete.
Next up: Iceland later in the year
For those who don't know much about the DofE expeditions it basically entails a small team living in wild country for a period of four days and travelling a huge amount of distance. You have to be self sufficient and carry 4 days worth of clothes, food survival equipment and your tents with you. My team started off with the five of us, here's the account:
***
Day 1 on top of our first mountain, my team of 5 got caught in a blizzard of hail and snow, we sought shelter behind the wall of an old ruin. Already we were in deep trouble, one of my group couldn’t walk more than 50 metres without collapsing to the ground in pain due to the fact he had torn his tendons, another member was entering into hypothermic shock. The visibility levels were poor and we couldn’t see more than 10 metres in front of us. It was getting colder and we toyed with the idea of phoning mountain rescue, except officially we aren't allowed cell phones on Duke of Edinburgh Award expeditions and the only two people with phones had either no credit or no battery. Things were looking very bleak, until in the distance we heard voices, we quickly sent a scout over to investigate, after 10 minutes, which seemed like an eternity, he returned with a group of hikers trapped in the snow as well. Unlike us, they weren’t carrying a weeks worth of food, clothes and equipment, and they were able to take our injured members ruck sacks, and together we managed to navigate our way off the mountain.
At the same time however, there were two other teams lost elsewhere in the mountains. On our way down, we ran into another one of those teams, they were in equally bad shape, but they joined up with us in our descent. Things took another turn for the worse though, in amongst the confusion our groups got separated, my team managed to return to base, the hikers also escaped the mountain, but the other cadet team got standard, we were at the bottom before we realised. Immediately a rescue party was sent up to try and find the other team. Upon their arrival the group was found in a state of exhaustion, the entire team in survival bags, entering into shock. Thankfully they were brought down without any major injury, and they were housed indoors over night.
Day 2.
The hypothermic member of our team is fully recovered, the member with injured legs decides to continue on.
We continued on our expedition, travelling through wild country, everything save the clothes I was now currently wearing absolutely drenched, and weighing down my rucksack incredibly.. Within the first half hour of our journey we encountered our first problem of day 2, a deep, fast flowing river that SHOULD have been crossable, except the torrential rain had meant that it was much more hazardous than it should have been. After several failed attempts at crossing it, (which I might add some of them were very comical) we had to take a 3 kilometre detour to find a bridge. Continuing on, we had a fairly alright day, except the previously injured members condition worsened, and we had to detour to locate the only house nearby and utilise their phone to arrange an evac for him. The member remained and the now group of four pressed on. We met another impossible river and had to make another 3Km journey to find a safe crossable point. The day was running on, we'd been walking since 9am and it was approaching 7:30pm, we weren’t far from the area we'd chosen to camp in, just one thing stood in our way. A mountain with an incredible gradient. No higher than the one on day 1, but a much steeper climb. Slowly we pressed on, urging ourselves up the mountain, every ounce of energy drained from our bodies, it was pure torture. I could feel myself going dizzy, the air was freezing cold, and we were loosing light rapidly, 9pm came, and we were still climbing. My only top layers were a jumper and T shirt due to the rest being soaked, and slowly I could feel myself becoming ill.
At roughly 9:15 we reached the top, the sense of victory was incredible, but it wasn’t over yet, we had to get over it. Camping out on the mountain overnight would have been a very bad move, and we couldn’t have turned back. And I was feeling a lot worse. As we continued to descend, I began to loose my footing more and more regularly, I began to wretch frequently, feeling as if I was going to throw up any moment, the exhaustion and cold were getting to me. It felt like the world was spinning, but I just knew that I had to get to the bottom of the mountain, otherwise I was screwed.
After what seemed like an eternity we made it to the bottom, and continued for about another km to find a place to camp where we had a stream nearby for water, we still had to cook that evening. By more luck than judgment, we stumbled across another team's camp who had taken another route, acting quickly, they stripped my rucksack off me and through me into a sleeping bag in one of their already set up tents, they packed 3 people into the tent with me to keep me warm and began cooking me a meal, without their help I would have become dangerously ill that night. All this happened at 10pm.
Day 3.
Things were much easier from here on, I was fully recovered and ready to press on. We bid farewell to the other team who now had to tackle the mountain we had beaten the previous day. We continued on. If I'm honest, day 3 was very easy by comparison, no major hardships, except one member of our team was constantly complaining about his ankle and kept stopping, promising that he would remain and not continue. Bull****, pardon my French. There was no way we were leaving him, after a good few strong words, we pressed on as a team, and we reached our next camping area by 3pm, a welcome contrast to the other 2 days. We were now actually on a campsite, rather than wild country, the worst of our exhibition over, and as such had access to an actual toilet and sink. It felt like a 5 star hotel to me. That day I went to sleep at 7:30pm and slept till 7:00 am the next day.
Day 4
The last day of exhibition. My ankle had swollen, and I couldn’t fit it into my boots with the compulsory 2 pairs of socks to protect from blisters. As such, one pair had to come off, a risky business. But necessary. Our route progressed through wild country later in the day, though closer to population than day 1 and 2. The guy who had complained about his ankle had now shut up, after realising we weren’t prepared to take any of his crap when his ankle wasn’t that bad. My ankle on the other hand, was in a lot of pain, but I said nothing. Not much else to say, a fairly uneventful day, we continued on, spirits wearing down, everyone exhausted and just wanting to get home. We finally met our ride back to civilisation on the outskirts of a forest at 5pm.
There were several funny events during the entire journey, including coming across a bus stop on day 3 which said "No busses serve this stop" then there was every other team member falling nearly waste deep into the marshes because they weren’t patient enough to go round...
Expedition 1 complete.
Next up: Iceland later in the year
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