North America, Greenland, West Greenland

Publication Year: 1967.

West Greenland. The Royal Military Academy Expedition spent some six weeks in West Greenland from the end of July to early September. Its members were 2nd Lieutenant R. M. Johnston, Officer Cadets A. F. Davidson and E. C. Walshaw and myself as leader. We flew from England to Thule and thence to Sondrestomfjord before traveling by coastal boat to Sukkertoppen. Finally a Greenland fishing boat took us up Evighedsfjord to land at the snout of the Taterat Glacier on August 5. We made a north- to-south ski traverse of the Sukkertoppen Icecap, a 900-square-mile mass of ice at about 5000 feet, which is cut off from the main Greenland Icecap. Glaciological studies were made for the Polar Research Institute of Ohio State University to follow up their work there in 1962-4. We then explored the Mount Atter massif, just south of the icecap. Atter was first climbed by the British expedition led by M. F. Holland in 1956 from the south via the southwest ridge. We approached from the northeast, from the head of the Taterat Glacier. From a 6000-foot cwm on August 26 we gained the northeast ridge, a beautiful, sharp ice arête which gave onto a 40-foot rock step just beneath the final 200 feet of ice which led to the summit (7185 feet). We also climbed two smaller mountains before being picked up by boat on September 2.

J. D. C. Peacock, Major, REME, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst