Camp Merrill: Week One

Hello everyone!  As many of you probably remember, during Patrick's first time through Darby Phase, I posted a day-by-day run down of what he would be doing.  Those excerpts are from the book, So This Is Ranger School.  I am going to continue adding those weekly to the blog as Patrick goes through Mountains Phase.  So without further adue, here is what Patrick will be doing this week.

Day 1 (9/30/12):  This day will start with you leaving Camp Rogers by bus and arriving at Camp Merrill sometime in the early afternoon.  Once you arrive, you will receive your orientation brief from your new instructors then move to the gym to get a health assessment.  At the health assessment, the doctors will look at your feet or any other injuries or issues that you might have developed while at Camp Darby.  After this is complete, you will move all of your baggage over to your company area and conduct your duffle bag layout.  Then the instructors will break you down into your new squads and platoons and then issue you the equipment that you will need for mountaineering week.  After all this is complete, you will move to your barracks for the night.

Day 2:  Day 2 starts the four days of the mountain phase known as “lowers.”  During these four days, you will learn the basic mountaineering skills such as knots, belays, anchors, and rappels.  Particularly, on Day 2, your day will start with breakfast in the mess hall.  Camp Merrill has some of the best pancakes ever. After breakfast, you will move to “lowers,” located about 15 minutes from your barracks area.  At lowers, you will get your first class on mountaineering.  On this day, you will rotate between three stations to prepare for your test the following day.  The first station will be your knots class.  At the knots class, you will learn how to tie the knots that you will be tested on the next day and will use during the rest of the phase.  They are:  the bowline, double figure eight, rerouted figure eight, figure eight slip, munter hitch, round turn with two half hitches, square, prusik, and clove hitch.  The second class will be your belay class.  In this class, you will learn how to tie into and test a mechanical belay system.  You will have all day and night to practice the knots and the belay system prior to your evaluations the next morning, so make sure you understand the material.  The third class will be your introduction into rappelling where you will learn to rappel off of a 660 foot wall, and then learn how to tie and rig a SKEDCO for transport.  These three classes will take all day.  You can expect to be at lowers until later that night practicing the knots and belay system.

Day 3:  The beginning of this day will start with the knots and belay system test.  You will be tested on your ability to execute a mechanical belay system. If you fail these tests the first time you will have a chance to retest, but don’t anticipate getting more than two retests.  After the tests are complete, you will receive a class and a practical exercise on a one rope bridge and a V-haul.  A V-haul is a rope suspension system that you will use to transport personnel and supplies up and down the mountain.  These two classes are important for you will have to execute both of these tasks during graded patrols. 

Days 4-5:  these days will be the trip to Mount Yonah where you will do advanced mountaineering known as “uppers.”  You will foot march out to the mountain site and conduct rappelling off the rock face of Mount Yonah.  Also, while you are there, you will do buddy rappels, casualty assisted evacuation rappels, and balance climbs.  You will spend the night prior to the foot march back to Camp Merrill.  If the weather situation limits you from going to Mount Yonah, you will do all of the same exercises at Camp Merrill off a 120+ foot rock face.  Both of these days are a pretty good time, so enjoy it.

Day 6:  This will be your first day of cadre (instructor) led classes.  The first focus for this day is the Operations Orders (OPORD) and Fragmented Orders (FRAGO) classes.  Your orders’ process during this phase will be quite different than your orders during the Darby phase.  Although the structure of your orders does not change much, the main area that will different is briefing the actions on the objective.  You will still have to make the briefing as personal as possible, but you can develop the plan with much more freedom than what you experienced in Camp Darby.  The second focus for the rest of this day will be the development of your platoon stand