Monday, Jul 4:
Planned a 10 mile mountain ruck at Stone Mountain State Park, the NC one, not the GA one. I have been wanting to check it out for a while, and made this the day. Nobody else came, which wasn’t too surprising, since it requires more of a commitment to drive a couple of hours to go to a ruck club event, vs driving 30 minutes. I don’t mind doing stuff alone, though.
There’s one main loop at the park that most people do (or do a part of), and then there are a number of side trails and loops as well. I started with one big loop that is 4.5 miles, going clockwise so that I could descend on the stairs, which is easier than doing a steep descent on trail. It was good to check out the waterfall early on, too. I felt like I had the trail to myself because it was 7:30am, and came across a couple of deer. They would be my companions for the day.
The best view of the waterfall was from the bottom. It wasn’t anything super special, but it was a good, large waterfall.
I continued along. The vegetation felt wild and was beautiful. There was some kind of flower blooming everywhere.
After a while, the trail led to a great view of the face of Stone Mountain. The best view of the mountain is from below. Nearby was an old homestead. It’s a self-guided tour of different buildings that the settlers would have used back in the day, so I read each information sign. It was nice to get a bonus burst of history on this ruck.
At the far end of the loop, the ascent up Stone Mountain began. It was good training for the GORUCK Land Nav HH, which was supposedly going to have some hilly terrain. It was steep and good for cardio. There were several bald rock face false summits up there, that offered good places to take a little break and enjoy the view. I also tried one side trail that led to a different rock face with similar views.
When you’re on the mountain, you’re not able to enjoy the view of the mountain like you could from below. Along the ridge, there were more spots where you could peek out at views from the top, but the first one at the top of the climb had been the most spectacular.
The trail to complete the loop was pretty easy. The parking lot was at a similar elevation as the ridge. This was the section that people who didn’t want to do the climb would have done, just to go to the top of the ridge and back. But then they would’ve missed the nice view of the mountain from below, and the rewarding feeling of seeing the great views after doing a challenging climb. There were more people around by now.
Rather than repeating the loop, I decided to cover the remaining 5 miles of the ruck by exploring the smaller trails in the park. The first one that I went to the “middle falls” and “lower falls”. It wasn’t really much… it was just where the water flowed after it went through the big waterfall. At lower falls, there was a creek crossing, where you could avoid getting your feet wet if you carefully rock hopped. I took my ruck off for this, since it would make me top-heavy and influence my ability to balance. I dropped the ruck, crossed the creek, and then ran about a quarter mile out to the end of the trail and back.
Next, I decided to explore “Cedar Rock” and “Wolf Rock”, since they were called out as points of interest on the trail map, too. Cedar Rock was another big rock face that you could cross. The trail went right through there, so blazes were painted on the rock itself to mark the way. It’s fairly flat, so you could miss the blazes if you weren’t paying attention. There were some more good views of Stone Mountain from the trail, but now from up higher, instead of from ground level.
With my exploration of the trails, I ended up covering 13.5 miles and 2,500 feet of gain in 6:19:57, more than the original 10 miles I planned to hit. Even with the 30# plate and a bit of survival gear, the ruck didn’t feel that heavy, which was good.
Wednesday, Jul 6:
SRT “Harrison” 15 min AMRAP with a 20#RPC for everything plus a 40#SB for some exercises, followed by the Joe Baker Fitness “5 rounds” workout with a 40#SB in 11 min, followed by my own invention – 5 rounds of 3 pullups, 15 40#SKB swings, 3 pullups, 50 4-ct flutter kicks with ruck OH, in 16 min, which I enjoyed. My glutes were sore from the mountain, so I focused on arms.
Thursday, Jul 7:
Did a 2 mile ruck with 30# in the 20L v3 rucker. The first mile was easy, and the second mile was fast. I wanted to do more, but there was lightning closeby. I wore MACV1s.
GORUCK SELF-RESPONDER
GORUCK Deception Weekend is the biggest, coolest tactical event on the GORUCK calendar. The premise is that to sign up, you have to be a Deception Patch holder, which means that you’ve done successfully completed and qualified in Counter Active Shooter – Pistol, Counter Active Shooter – Rifle, Night Fire, FIGHT, Self-Responder, a Tough, and a Basic/Light. With these pre-requisites, we’re able to participate in a more advanced version of the usual classes, because everyone has a baseline level of skill and experience.
Self-responder certainly fit this bill as it kicked off the weekend. For the first time, we’d be doing a SR class that included simmunitions. It was like a combination of FoF and Self-responder, where we’d address a more complete active shooter scenario than usual. We’d take turns going through the scenario, with a cadre walking alongside us as we went, to coach us. Once we finished going through, we’d become part of the role playing contingent, to add to subsequent participants’ experience.
Things I could’ve done better:
- When approaching a situation where you hear that shots have been fired and someone is an active threat inside, draw before entering, vs after you get in the door
- When popping out, change elevation
- Don’t accidentally skip clearing even small alcoves.
- Check the guy’s person once he’s down, for anything that might still be dangerous. Clear and secure any weapons that they have, rather than just pushing it aside.
- On junctional wounds, pack the wound, since a halo seal won’t help.
- Delegate tasks to people who could help, like having them call 9-11, and let them know that the threat has been neutralized, have them describe me the good guy, and have them help me render first aid.
Things I did well:
- Pied off the corners, based on team tactics training
- Didn’t shoot the no-shoots
- Didn’t get sucked into rendering aid to the first casualties that I passed, when there was still a threat at large. Stop the killing first.
- Applied the halo seal and TQ correctly
This was a neat class to be a part of, because when you encounter a situation, it’s not one-dimensional, like giving first aid alone. It may be more complex. It was also cool that we were forced to look into the “toolbox” of our IFAKs and decide what to use based on the situation, instead of being told what to use and then practicing that without thinking. It was the first time we’d done a SR situation under pressure. There was more to worry about than just rendering aid, so our heartrates were jacked up, and we had tactical skills thrown into the mix.
This is all we did during the class, since even taking 10 people through the full scenario and resetting took a lot of time. There wasn’t even a classroom portion of the class. You were expected to know the self-responder and tactical skills already, because this was a Deception Patch Holder event.
GORUCK TACTICAL DECISION MAKING
I slept in my car overnight, because it was easier and cheaper than checking in and out of a hotel and having to get settled and re-pack.
TDM, formerly known as Force-on-Force, was the second event of the weekend. The name shift took place because sometimes, force isn’t the best answer.
We started, as usual, with inoculating ourselves to the sims. If we did get hit, we had to apply a TQ while keeping our weapons up and ready.
We learned how to clear and process rooms solo, which was something I’ve wanted to learn. It’s better to be able to clear in a team, of course, but sometimes, you’re solo, and if you have no choice but to clear solo, you’d better know how to do it.
- How to clear an L-shaped hallway, including maybe even pointing your feet towards the safe hallway, to avoid exposing your femoral artery. Be in low ready, so that you can see more.
- How to clear a center-fed room, where you do have to pick a side first after you rainbow 90% of it, but you can limit exposure by not entering the room as you do this.
- How to clear a corner-fed room, where you can cover most of the space by pieing off, check the crack of the door, and then only have to charge the dead space in the end.
- How to decide which side of the closed door to approach from (hinge side for out-swinging door), to maximize what you can see
Processing Rooms
1. Clear and secure the weapon
2. Dead check
3. Check high/low/middle
4. Mark the people and the door, to show that the people and the room have been processed
We ran through one main scenario, taking turns as role player vs protagonist, with the scenario changed up enough so that even if you role played at first, when it was your turn to run the scenario, you’d still be challenged. There’s always so much going on in the scenario, too. There’s a lot to take in, and you are under pressure, feeling fear, trying to make the right decisions when lives are on the line.
It was in the same building where SR had taken place, and some elements of the scenario were similar, but we were tested on recognizing who among the role players had been doing what, and what people were saying. A lot of that all went in one ear and out the other, with the stress. I did do better on some things that I had failed to do the previous night, so at least I am learning.
Also thrown into the mix were explosives planted by the bad guy, which was another element that’s real, but that we’ve never encountered in class scenarios before. Tactical training is so much more than firearms skills. You need situational awareness and an ability to stay calm and focus on the priorities as the situation evolves.
We had enough time after that for a mini scenario regarding use of force thought processes and legalities. We even got to jump into the GORUCK jeep as our starting point. You come across a situation, and you’re not in it yet, but as it starts to escalate, did you have a way to escape? If you had been unarmed, would you still have put yourself into the situation? What’s your relationship to the apparent victim in the scenario that you’ve come across?
GORUCK FIGHT
In the evening, we had a FIGHT class, where we used the pistol sims again! Normally, we use plastic Glocks to learn how to disarm someone. I had always been a bit skeptical about how effective I’d be using the techniques taught in class, if it were a real weapon. Now, we’d put it to the test! It worked surprisingly well!
We learned how to counter guns pointed at our heads, chest, and at our partner, from left, right, and front.
GORUCK TEAM TACTICS
This was my second time doing Team Tactics, so it was a good opportunity for me to see what I remembered, and hopefully pick up on more of the nuances that I had missed or had not covered the first time around. The venue was different from the one in the first class, which is great, because you get to learn about different dimensions based on the space and layout that’s available.
We learned about clearing and processing rooms. We practiced in smaller teams of 3 with individual types of clears, before moving onto more comprehensive scenarios where we worked our way through an entire building to get to an LOA.
We learned nuances like rolling point people, long cover, dynamic vs deliberate clearing based on the width of a hallway, the benefits of WMLs for blinding the enemy and helping to focus your attention as you look, not standing too close to the door, so that you can see more and have a bit more time and space to make better decisions and not telegraph your location with your muzzle.
We got to celebrate a very special birthday. The dog was good entertainment. I also received my Fight Terror patch. Most of this group has seen each other at many FAD events over the years, so it was like a family reunion. What's cool about Deception Patch Holder events is that you can jump right into more advanced scenarios, since everyone has a baseline already. You have also shot with most everyone before, too, so there's a level of trust and predictable way of working together, that allows you to do the more advanced stuff safely.
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