Good morning to you all. And what a morning it is! Not a cloud to be seen from Operations HQ in Pall Mall, London. Certainly makes travelling to work a pleasure.

But enough of this! I am pleased to say that we have added extra content to the website which I hope you will find very interesting.

The additions include detailed information and images from the all-important Cold Chamber testing days, Ian Prickett’s report on crevasse training in the Lake District and Steve Holland’s first of four articles on field testing in Sweden, which was carried out earlier this year.

Lots more to follow soon, including Spencer Smirl’s take on a particularly realistic and gory first aid training course, Tris Kaye’s enthusiastic recollections of learning to drive a Caterpillar D6N, and a summary from Sir Ranulph Fiennes himself on how the idea for the expedition was conceived.