United States Army

Mountaineering Techniques (Basic) United States Army

This subcourse is designed to teach you the techniques you must know in order to copewith mountainous terrain. The subcourse contains information on identifying the differenttypes of terrain; characteristics of weather and climate; acclimatization and conditioning;and basic mountaineering techniques. Mountains exist in almost every country in the world. Almost every war has includedsome type of mountain operations. This pattern will not change; therefore, you will fightin mountainous terrain in future conflicts. Mountain operations have not changed, but theequipment and transportation available today have changed. The helicopter allows accessto terrain that was once unreachable or could be reached only by slow methodicalclimbing. If bad weather exists, you must still use mountain climbing techniques to reachan objective.