 Army presents The Big Picture, an official report produced for the armed forces and the American people. Welcome to Alaska, land of towering peaks, snowy glaciers and fast-flowing streams, and also the home of Fort Greeley, about 100 miles from the inland city of Fairbanks. Here you are about to be a summer guest at the United States Army's Cold Weather and Mountain School. During the winter, students learn to cope with extreme cold weather, of which there is an abundant local supply. And in the summer, the courses are primarily concerned with mountain climbing, for which Fort Greeley is well equipped. For the summer course, your fellow students will be other officers and non-commissioned officers who have been assigned for mountain training from units throughout the zone of interior. Your objective will be to develop skills not only for survival in the rugged high ranges, but also for the accomplishment of military missions under the difficult conditions imposed by vertical terrain. The dainty foot gear issued along with other special items of equipment gives a clue to the nature of the training to come. But first, as in all schools, comes the book work. Following a brief outline of the instruction to be given, the class buckles down to the necessary preliminaries to field training. Following the essential subjects are map reading, geography, weather observation, and supply maintenance. In each class, the instructor is an old hand at making the most of the little the desolate north has to offer. This is one place where there is no substitute for experience. Nothing replaces first hand knowledge of the Timberlands, Muskeg Plateaus, and rocky cliffs of the north country, which is exactly the theory practiced at this school. So you know it, you're out where the fun and games begin, learning to rig a shelter. This 10 man tent is the standard shelter for field units here. Housing an infantry squad, the tent may be heated with a gasoline or wood burning Yukon stove. But tents are not always available, so you also learn to improvise from natural resources at hand. These brush and brand shelters, complete with air conditioning, are used regularly on school bivouacs in both winter and summer. With the initial instruction completed, your class of 120 men is ready for the second stage of training. This involves a move of some 37 miles south from the main camp base. Housing, classrooms, and recreational facilities have been set up here at Black Rapids. And at nearby Falls Creek, there is what might be described as a combination recreation and study facility, the basic rock climbing instruction area. Rock outcroppings here range up to 90 feet high. Shortly after arriving, everybody goes for a walk, literally up the creek. This is your first mountain trail hike, and the only way back is the way you go in. At first there seems to be nothing strenuous about this stroll into the high country, but then it becomes more involved, and you begin to get an idea of the kind of training you're in for. In a few days you progress to steeper trails, and you acknowledge the axiom that what goes up must come down. This technique is called glissading, and in case it threatens to go out of control, you slam on the brakes with your ice axe. On-the-job training with your classmates teaches the teamwork needed for successful mountaineering. There's no room for grandstand players on this team. Like links in a chain, each man depends on all the others. It's a team effort all the way. Climbing the bluff, you realize the purpose of the sturdy boots on your feet. This isn't exactly tennis shoe terrain. Up on top, you get a breather, but your instructor is just warming up. He still has wind for a lecture on geography. Across the valley, dominating the scene, is Black Rapids Glacier, one of your objectives later in training. Isn't this scenery marvelous? All right, men, that's enough. Let's move along. Now we come to rope work. Next to the bootmaker, a rope is the climber's best friend. He must know how to use it and learn to trust it. You may spend the rest of the week just tying knots. You learn that every knot has a purpose, and every little tying movement has a meaning of its own. Here you go on your first real climbing lesson. Balance climbing is essentially an individual effort, with no rope linking you to the other members of the unit. But learning still requires teamwork. The instructor is right with you all the way, demonstrating the proper foot and hand holds. Now for the one that separates the sheep from the mountain goats, body repelling down a cliff. In this maneuver, you use a parachute without a canopy, 120 feet of nylon line. The first drop is the worst. But once you find your stomach again, you begin to pick up the technique. Land with your feet against the face of the cliff, not vice versa. A little skill in the art of falling helps a lot here. In a few days, your knowledge of rope handling expands to cover some other useful applications, such as the vertical hauling line. This installation is an invaluable lifting device for steep inclines. Going up, express to the top level. Setting up a vertical hauling line soon becomes second nature. A well-trained mountaineer squad can ready one for use in a matter of minutes. Next you shinny up the cliff with the help of a line knotted at intervals for gripping purposes. Your buddy ahead is not being pulled up by his friends at the base of the cliff. The endless line they're hauling on is just a safety precaution in case he slips. The climber is self-propelled all the way to the top. And now you begin to feel that you're getting the hang of this mountain climbing. You respond to the challenge of the heights with a new sense of freedom and accomplishment. As a reward, your instructor treats you to a ride on the mountaineer's flying carpet, the suspension traverse. It can be used for swift descent or movement from one peak to another. Another mountain method of moving from one place to another without getting your feet wet is the rope bridge. This two-line model is made with the climbing ropes normally carried by the squad. The trick is to keep your hands above your feet. Oops! But in case of accident while training, you'll wear a safety line. It's no disgrace to slip while learning. Oops! Because everybody does it at first. The main thing is to learn how to climb back on and stay there. Or you can step up to the three-rope bridge. A little more elaborate, but still within the capability of a small unit in the field when time is available for construction. Three manila lines are strung together in a kind of rope ladder with twelve foot lengths of nylon sling every two feet. When strung across the creek and anchored to a pole on each side, the bridge provides a dry crossing without the hazard of a two-line tight rope operation. The length frame elevates the hand lines on each side and then the entire span is cinched down with a transport tightening knot. This type of bridge is more suitable than the two-line span for men traveling under full field packs. Medical evacuation is stressed in training because it presents some unique problems of movement in the mountains. One of your classmates volunteers to be tied to the litter as a simulated casualty for this squad exercise in cliff evacuation. While the safety belayer holds the litter from above on a taut line, two men rappelling down the cliff guide the litter over obstructions. The descent is carefully controlled. Safely off the cliff, the men who have guided the litter down prepare their simulated patient for further evacuation. While your section takes basic rock climbing, the other half of the summer class is getting ready for river operations on the Tanada River, some fifteen miles north of Fort Greeley. Where your section of the class will train in river operations too. These students have finished their classroom work on such subjects as motor maintenance and operation, boating equipment and river study. Now they will be called on to use this instruction. A squad instructor shoves off in one of the thirty-foot spruce plank boats, especially constructed for this river training. Powered with thirty-five horsepower outboard motors, the boats normally carry a squad of eleven men. And for training purposes, the squads are limited to six or seven. These sailors of the army must learn to read the river, to know where they can take their boats without smashing into rocks and shoals. They must also learn how to beach the boat properly. Bringing it in for a landing against the rapid current is a tricky operation. He wants to hear the cry, man overboard in these icy waters. But the students of this school must be prepared for it if it comes. Again, a victim is simulated. But instead of a student, this time a gasoline can serves the purpose. Meanwhile, back at Black Rapids, or to be more exact, at Whistler's Creek, some four miles east, you and the first section of the class are coming along in great style. Here the outcroppings range up to a hundred and twenty feet, with another drop of about eight hundred feet to the canyon floor below. Now we see the reason for the emphasis on teamwork. At these heights, the men work rope together for mutual safety. While one climbs, the other two hold belay positions as firmly as possible to hold him in case of a fall. Lunchtime gives everybody a break. Chow is brought in by helicopter. Room service for a room as big as all outdoors. After lunch, we get set for repelling from real heights. Here's where you show what you learned on the smaller cliffs. There are no bad marks for failures in this class, just cuts and bruises. It's a hundred and twenty feet straight down to the rocks. Some students take to repelling with more enthusiasm than others. Airborne personnel especially seem to feel at home dangling from a rope over empty space. But soon everybody is leaping with careful abandon, making the hundred and twenty foot descent in three jumps. As the instructors say, repelling is the second fastest way of coming down a cliff. While we've still got some spring in our legs, let's travel south into the heart of the Alaskan Range and up on the Galkana Glacier for special training. Glaciers like this one, a river of ice traveling in extremely slow motion, thread through most of the Alaskan mountains. They offer excellent lines of communication and transportation, providing you know how to travel on them. Our training on ice is designed to give us the necessary confidence for glacier travel. Crampons strapped to the boots supply additional traction for this frozen highway of the north. Now we are approaching final exams at the Cold Weather and Mountain School. The climax of all these weeks of hard work is a field exercise. Our mission is to move 50 miles up the Tanana River, establish a beach head, destroy an intermediate objective and continue overland to our final objective. Regardless of weather, we load our boats with all the gear we can take. The class is divided into the components of a tactical unit with one of your classmates appointed as commander. The students will actually conduct the exercise, monitored constantly by the instructors. After launching, the boats are maneuvered into a tactical formation, dispersed for the move upriver. While make yourself as comfortable as possible, we've got a good 12 hours of steady boating ahead. In Alaskan summer days, it is still light when you pull in for a landing at the beach head. Now the practice and drill of the past weeks show up as the boatmen bring their craft in smartly. Immediately after the units dispersed throughout the beach head, your instructor gives the student commander orders for the next move. As in combat, routes and objectives are announced as the move is made. The word is passed along. We move up the gravel riverbed, staying in the shadows to avoid detection. A route march of several miles should bring the units to the intermediate objective, Erandivou with helicopters. Things could become a little sticky at this point. It's a timed operation, and if the students are late, the helicopters are gone. And if the choppers have moved on, the students can happily look forward to 40 miles more of foot-pounding over extremely rough terrain. But all is well. The choppers are arriving on schedule, because this part of the move to the final objective would take two days. Airborne, the trip will be reduced to a matter of minutes. Two-point is confirmed, and supplies are loaded aboard. Now for the airlift, mountaineering at its best. The choppers head down the valley and out across country, and wonder what the poor infantrymen are doing today. Coming in singly and in pairs, the helicopters land on the assembly area ridge. Your unit is deployed for the final attack, and the choppers move out immediately. Last-minute check on plans for the attack. So far, you and your classmates have done well. Back to the foot-slugging across the Muskeg for the simulated assault to end the field exercise. This is the climax of a full day of operations by land, water and air, designed to test your skill and stamina in every phase of mountain combat. One more hurdle to cross, the final exams. Your instructor puts you through the paces on every technique you have studied since your arrival at the school. This test is based on the simple premise that if you give a man enough rope, he gets tangled up in it. But you've learned a lot about rope-coiling in the past six weeks. It's up to you now to prove that the Army's confidence and your ability to learn was not misplaced. Here's one of your classmates acting as the number one man in party climbing. Is he selecting the proper route? How about his choice of hand and footholds? Does he give the proper signals? These are the questions to be carefully considered by the grading instructor. One of the instructor's horizontal harrowed by name is back on the job here, simulating another casualty while a student demonstrates the proper method of securing an injured man on a litter. An examination in military mountaineering wouldn't be complete without a test in repelling. This student's technique in the hip rappel shows that the instruction given has been absorbed. There may have been times when you never expected to see it, graduation day has come. The commencement address is given by a guest speaker from the United States Army headquarters, Alaska. The top student is honored with the award of a trophy, symbol of highest proficiency. And then the moment each of you is waited for through six weeks of hard work. The presentation of the diploma, which marks the Army's fullest confidence in your mountaineering abilities. This is the recognition of your competence to lead combat soldiers under the most difficult conditions of the rugged North Country. Next morning, transport planes warm up to return you and your fellow graduates to your home units. Suddenly you realize you have learned a great deal more than the physical skills and special techniques required in the course. You have a new awareness of self-reliance and a new respect for the courage, determination and group effort needed by a military mountaineering team. Equally important, you have discovered that the sheer cliffs and bleak tundra of the far north are no longer insurmountable obstacles to military operations. According to your home unit, you bring with you a soldier's pride in your increased ability to survive, lead and fight in one of the world's most hostile natural environments.