A cadet has dropped the idea of a winter bivouac in my head and I've been wondering how good of an idea it might be? Has anybody else in the Northeast run a winter bivouac? (I mean, the kind where you're probably in the woods deep in snow?) Has it been worth it for other units?
What kind of things would one focus on? Winter survival skills obviously come to mind.
Midway 6's unit and buddies do an "Ice Bowl" every year - other than the basic issues of winter survival, the majority of the training is standard CAP stuff.
Its in January, generally and gets a big turnout.
Check with Kirt Bowden on CS. He's done several.
We have a few winter bivouacs here, granted its SC winter sooo.
But surf on over to Sccadets.org, theres a few pages of pictures and descriptions of past events.
Yeah....winter here is 10 Jan to 1300 on 17 Jan.
And it drops to a bone shivering 38 degrees......
Speaking of training, we typically take each task from a part of the GT manual and have a short training session on them. Couple that with marches, river crossings, shelter setups and classes on land nav and we do alright.
Even if it is 70 degrees haha. (But the water in that river is cold).
Did a couple in Upstate NY back in the 70's. Everyone was so intent on trying not to freeze we didn't really accomplish much except some winter survival training...
A picture is worth a thousand words (if you're cheap).
http://www.kalemis.com/cap/ice/page_9.htm (http://www.kalemis.com/cap/ice/page_9.htm)
Whats that white stuff on the ground? ???
;)
Quote from: Becks on November 02, 2006, 08:06:09 PM
Whats that white stuff on the ground? ???
;)
It's angel-s***, dude.
Quote from: Becks on November 02, 2006, 08:06:09 PM
Whats that white stuff on the ground? ???
;)
It's that stuff that, when you get an inch of it, it shuts down your entire infrastructure. ;) :D ;D
I will just make the comment that I make to my squadron when bringing up the issue of an FTX and the feasibility of going into the woods.
The freakin' Boy Scouts do it every month!!!
Now I understand that an FTX is a lot more grueling than the average scout campout, I've done both being an Eagle Scout in my former life and now in CAP: http://www.cap.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&nodeID=6192&newsID=2439&year=2006&month=11
But even going out aver 4 to 5 months is doable even if it is 18" of snow and your warmer if you are buried in a snow bank than in your tent. I would do it just make sure you have plenty of cold weather gear for all attending, we don't want to reenact the Battle of the Bulge in the NE.
Good luck and keep warm.
Quote from: Pylon on November 02, 2006, 09:36:48 PM
Quote from: Becks on November 02, 2006, 08:06:09 PM
Whats that white stuff on the ground? ???
;)
It's that stuff that, when you get an inch of it, it shuts down your entire infrastructure. ;) :D ;D
haha yes and how I love when that happens. Having been raised in Wisconsin I can only laugh when we get an inch down here and its close to a state emergency :)
In Florida, we call that white stuff on the ground...beach sand
Quote from: BillB on November 02, 2006, 10:26:27 PM
In Florida, we call that white stuff on the ground...beach sand
Much more desirable than snow in my opinion.
It is never that white and pretty here. here in Oregon we refer to it as Cascade Concrete. The snow most of the time has a good layer of ice on it so it is really hard snow. i really wish we could get some good snow for once.
They have a Semi-Winter Bivouac (March time frame) in the Finger Lakes Area of New York State. It serves to training in less than ideal conditions. Sometimes the WX is spring and sometimes its snow and cold. Either way, I already have cadets wanting to sign up. They have a good time and the training is great.
For us in Upstate NY, the conditions are very normal for 6 months out of the year. You never know what type of WX you are going to be working in, so be prepared for the worst.
PAWG holds two winter schools each February, one at HMRS and one at a western PA location. The Basic class provides a good 'taste' of winter field operations. It's typical Pennsylvania though; the weather can vary pretty widely in February.
Winter School information will appear at http://pawg.cap.gov/hawk/winter_school.htm (http://pawg.cap.gov/hawk/winter_school.htm) when the HMRS site is updated to reflect the 2007 schedule.
Quote from: Becks on November 02, 2006, 10:58:03 PM
Quote from: BillB on November 02, 2006, 10:26:27 PM
In Florida, we call that white stuff on the ground...beach sand
Much more desirable than snow in my opinion.
Traitor to Wisconsin!
Quote from: MAJOR DISASTER on November 03, 2006, 12:20:27 PM
They have a Semi-Winter Bivouac (March time frame) in the Finger Lakes Area of New York State. It serves to training in less than ideal conditions. Sometimes the WX is spring and sometimes its snow and cold. Either way, I already have cadets wanting to sign up. They have a good time and the training is great.
For us in Upstate NY, the conditions are very normal for 6 months out of the year. You never know what type of WX you are going to be working in, so be prepared for the worst.
Cool! It would be great if you let us know in Central NY Group when you guys were planning on that, if you wouldn't mind additional participants! I know at least some of our people would be interested, but perhaps not enough to warrant running our own? :)
Quote from: Matt on November 03, 2006, 03:33:48 PM
Quote from: Becks on November 02, 2006, 10:58:03 PM
Quote from: BillB on November 02, 2006, 10:26:27 PM
In Florida, we call that white stuff on the ground...beach sand
Much more desirable than snow in my opinion.
Traitor to Wisconsin!
Haha dont worry my old service coat still has the 62'nd on the sleeve :)
Quote from: Pylon on November 02, 2006, 05:39:39 AM
A cadet has dropped the idea of a winter bivouac in my head and I've been wondering how good of an idea it might be? Has anybody else in the Northeast run a winter bivouac? (I mean, the kind where you're probably in the woods deep in snow?) Has it been worth it for other units?
What kind of things would one focus on? Winter survival skills obviously come to mind.
Our Squadron CC recently asked the cadets to come up with a list of activities that they would like to do over the next six to twelve months and a winter bivouac was on the list as well, pretty high up there actually.
When the CC read the list at an Officer Staff meeting, I could already see the look on some Officers' faces of "Will there be room for an RV??". Winter in Michigan can be rather unpredicable at best, if Meteorologists are right more than 20% of the time they're banned from the area's casinos. I think I was the only one who was genuinely excited about it :) I can plead insanity, right?
The pictures of the "Ice Bowl" are great, I'll have to share those with the cadets, looks like fun! Thanks!!
Quote from: arajca on November 02, 2006, 08:27:16 PM
Quote from: Becks on November 02, 2006, 08:06:09 PM
Whats that white stuff on the ground? ???
;)
It's angel-s***, dude.
Naw, man, in Maine, we used to call that "partly cloudy".
Quote from: Becks on November 03, 2006, 06:13:15 PM
Quote from: Matt on November 03, 2006, 03:33:48 PM
Quote from: Becks on November 02, 2006, 10:58:03 PM
Quote from: BillB on November 02, 2006, 10:26:27 PM
In Florida, we call that white stuff on the ground...beach sand
Much more desirable than snow in my opinion.
Traitor to Wisconsin!
Haha dont worry my old service coat still has the 62'nd on the sleeve :)
Yeah.....the OLD one....Save the new one he just bought.
All your Drew are belong to SCWG......MUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!
While with GA WG, we conducted one every year called Frostbite. It was very popular with the cadets. It was always held in the NGA mountains and we tried to arrange it when there would be snow. The focus was the same as any normal FTX but had the added elements of snow and extreme cold. Survival skills were stressed as well as normal groundteam SAR since airplanes dont always go missing on sunny 75degree days. GA WG still conducts these each winter.
Check out my posting in the Tall Tail" thread in the ES forum. I ran several Winter Exercises and I think they were ver valuable. Even if there is no snow on the ground lessons can still be learned when temps are in the single digits and the wing ain't no joke.
I did Winter Hawk back in '02 and that was cold, yet valuable.
Quote from: Stonewall on April 07, 2007, 05:15:18 AM
Check out my posting in the Tall Tail" thread in the ES forum. I ran several Winter Exercises and I think they were ver valuable. Even if there is no snow on the ground lessons can still be learned when temps are in the single digits and the wing ain't no joke.
I did Winter Hawk back in '02 and that was cold, yet valuable.
Thanks Kirt, I did take a look at that post; great stuff! Thanks for sharing!
Though most of the snow has thawed around here, it's definitely something I want to plot on the calendar for early next winter.
The last winter bivouac I attended was WIWAC. It was the winters of '97, '98 and '99.
The first one was held at a boy scout camp. We didn't sleep it tents because it didn't come above -20F the whole weekend. Even with the fireplace going, it was still a balmy 35 degrees in the cabin. Good thing for the surplus ECW sleeping bags :)
The second and third ones were at our Sq CCs cabin in VT. The Senior Staff spent all weekend in the cabin (mission base), and we carved out the snow to put our tents on the ground. Since said cabin was on a small mountain, we set up our campfire on the summit, and the snow was about mid thigh deep...
During the weekends we conducted winter survival training, fire building, ELT Search stuff, and went for a few hikes.
It was definitely a good bonding experience for us as cadets and something that I can now check off my list of things to do.