Paid To Do This
I spent the last week learning and practicing day and night navigation as part of my training. We spent the week in Kaniksu National Forest walking around in the woods and camping. It was good training...it was also sweet to spend a week in the woods again.
Hiking through a clearing the first day. The Washington forests could get really thick, so hitting open spots like this were a welcome relief.
One guy found this sweet elk head while we were navigating. He carried all 30 pounds of it the rest of the day back to the camp.
From on top of one of the peaks we climbed our first day of navigation. The schedule was more packed than it seemed. We'd wake up, eat breakfast, do a land navigation, eat dinner, do a night navigation, then go to sleep. The first few days we were in two groups with an instructor apiece, then a group by ourselves, then the last two days we did solo day and night treks. I felt pretty comfortable with navigation, but I still learned a lot during the course, and adapting to the thick forests of northern Washington was challenging, especially at night.
Working on the fire at our base camp. We mainly operated out of one camp, although one of our treks involved moving to a new site and setting up camp for the night. We lived pretty high on the hog, though, with propane stoves, coolers, and lots of fire wood.
One day we ran a scenario that included a helicopter insertion and extraction. This is the view from where the helicopter was supposed to pick us up. We ended up having to hike down to the valley, as the pickup site on the mountain was a bit sketchy.
Our instructors for the course were survival instructors. Being survival instructors, they were real big on practicing building fires, so we built them all the time. Here we're making a small fire to get us by until the helo came to pick us up.
Me at the pickup site. My pants are military issue, but we were allowed to modify the standard uniforms a bit to be more conducive to the field environment.
Some of the guys running out to get on the helo. The orange vests are on their rucks because that day happened to coincide with the opening of elk and deer hunting season in the national forest that we were hiking in.
Ready to lift off.
Rocking the sweet glasses we had to wear to keep dirt out of our eyes when the rotor wash picks up entering and exiting the helo.
The view out the side of the helo. I'm getting paid to do this...
Hiking through a clearing the first day. The Washington forests could get really thick, so hitting open spots like this were a welcome relief.
One guy found this sweet elk head while we were navigating. He carried all 30 pounds of it the rest of the day back to the camp.
From on top of one of the peaks we climbed our first day of navigation. The schedule was more packed than it seemed. We'd wake up, eat breakfast, do a land navigation, eat dinner, do a night navigation, then go to sleep. The first few days we were in two groups with an instructor apiece, then a group by ourselves, then the last two days we did solo day and night treks. I felt pretty comfortable with navigation, but I still learned a lot during the course, and adapting to the thick forests of northern Washington was challenging, especially at night.
Working on the fire at our base camp. We mainly operated out of one camp, although one of our treks involved moving to a new site and setting up camp for the night. We lived pretty high on the hog, though, with propane stoves, coolers, and lots of fire wood.
One day we ran a scenario that included a helicopter insertion and extraction. This is the view from where the helicopter was supposed to pick us up. We ended up having to hike down to the valley, as the pickup site on the mountain was a bit sketchy.
Our instructors for the course were survival instructors. Being survival instructors, they were real big on practicing building fires, so we built them all the time. Here we're making a small fire to get us by until the helo came to pick us up.
Me at the pickup site. My pants are military issue, but we were allowed to modify the standard uniforms a bit to be more conducive to the field environment.
Some of the guys running out to get on the helo. The orange vests are on their rucks because that day happened to coincide with the opening of elk and deer hunting season in the national forest that we were hiking in.
Ready to lift off.
Rocking the sweet glasses we had to wear to keep dirt out of our eyes when the rotor wash picks up entering and exiting the helo.
The view out the side of the helo. I'm getting paid to do this...
posted by Slim at
9:29 PM
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