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Outside Magazine February 2002
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Winter to the Corps (Cont.)

Sentries dig in to defend their positions after taking an observation post during mock combat.
THE MWTC LIES IN THE BELLY of the central Sierra Nevada, on 46,000 acres leased from Toyaibe National Forest. Elevations range from 6,000 to 11,500 feet, and the terrain rises from creek-bottom brush to towering ponderosa forest to sheer granite walls. Much of the alpine portion is buried beneath six feet of snow half the year. The base itself resembles a community college—a cluster of brown and tan buildings cradled by mountains. The day I showed up, there was a foot of new powder on the Sierra crest.

Captain Andretta is the OIC of the IQC for the MCMWTC. In civilian-speak, that's the officer in charge of the Instructor Qualification Course at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center. He showed me around, starting with a gleaming, state-of-the-art fitness center and weight room.

"Instructor candidates spend a month straight in the field," he said, "and are taught and then tested on such subjects as advanced avalanche skills, rock climbing, ice climbing, mountain navigation, cliff assaults, cold-weather weapons operations, survival, water procurement, wilderness first aid—everything that fighting in the mountains entails."

Passing into the gymnasium, Andretta flicked on the lights to reveal a 35-foot-high climbing wall stretching the length of the basketball court, with radical overhangs, cracks, pockets, and chimneys. He asked if I'd like to climb. We spent the next several hours on the wall, flailing up one route after another.

Andretta is a kayaker and a vegetarian, drives a hammered Toyota pickup with the radio locked on NPR, and has a degree in civil engineering. He loves the satire of The Onion, and the furniture in the house where he rooms with a Marine helicopter pilot
"We teach them how to climb and ski," says Captain Culp. "But after they ski through a pass or climb a cliff, they still have to have the strength and the will to fight. To hunt down the enemy and kill the bastards."
has been arranged according to the principles of feng shui. His dad was a marine. "Antiquated as some may think it sounds," he told me, "I joined because I wanted to serve my country. My mom keeps asking me when I'm going to use my degree, but to me, I already have: I used it to get a commission in the Marine Corps."

In the morning I worked out with the mountain instructors and then showered with a bunch of muscled guys—clean-cut military men who, naked, turned out to be inscribed with tattoos: barbed wire, battle cries, babes.

I spent the afternoon with the quotable Captain Culp, a 17-year career officer who's been deployed in Korea, Somalia, Norway, and the Philippines. He loves the life: "Hey! If it doesn't give you a woody, you're in the wrong fuckin' business."

Culp drove me up toward Sonora Pass, pointing his bulging cheek full of chaw at a snow-caked peak. "Every morning the men run, ski, or snowshoe four miles straight up from the base, a gain of 3,000 feet."

I must not have seemed appropriately impressed.

"With an assault load, of course," Culp added. "Daypacks, full canteens, full magazines, M-16s." Culp took me to the granite cliffs where the marines practice rock climbing.

"Thirteen different knots, 12 different rope systems. To pass the course you have to lead 5.7."

Well, I thought, 5.7 isn't that difficult.

In standard-issue combat boots, Culp went on, again with an assault load and loaded weapon.

At night.

"With a headlamp?" I asked.

Culp shook his head. "Nice big target smack-dab on your forehead."

For downhill-skiing instruction, the marines are shuttled to Kirkwood, a nearby ski area to learn and then practice telemarking. This, too, must eventually be done with a full load, in the dark.

"All the flat-ground training we teach right here," Culp said. "Diagonal stride, V-1, V-2."

Back at the base he loaned me a set of manuals and textbooks. The avalanche material, I saw, came from the most recent edition of Snow Sense, the best book on the subject; the alpine-climbing sections featured the latest information from Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills, sixth edition; the river- and canyon-crossing procedures reflected the most sophisticated canyoneering techniques in use anywhere. The gear, too, is first-rate: Capilene long underwear, Polartec fleece, Gore-Tex jackets and bivy sacks, Alico three-pin boots, The North Face tents, MSR WhisperLite stoves.

Culp has one implacable expectation, and it is not simply to create skilled outdoorsmen. "We teach them how to climb and ski, and most of them love it," he said. "But those are just the means to an end. After they ski up through a pass or climb to the top of a cliff, they still have to have the capability and the strength and the will to fight. To hunt down the enemy and kill the bastards."




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