2009 EPISODE 9 of 12: TRI-TOWER

Ranger teams will test their basic climbing skills, mountaineering, overcoming obstacles and aircraft egress

Next up, the Tri-Tower challenge.

SFC James S. Mastrodomenico: "They need to climb all three towers. It's a sixty-foot rock climb into a repel, then they'll move to our Caving Ladder, which is twenty feet, then they'll go ahead and fast rope. Then they'll come over to our third tower, which is a rope climb with a fast rope. Fastest time takes all."

SFC James S. Mastrodomenico: "Guys who aren't as experienced with climbing, what they do is using their upper-body strength to go ahead and climb the sixty-foot wall as opposed to small steps with small hands, then establishing feet. Then they go over to the Caving Ladder and again, as opposed to using the heel hook and using a foot in the Caving Ladder, they try to monkey their way up. Then they pump themselves out and by the time they get over the rope they just got nothing left."

Now with Captain Aguilar down, Garberson can start his climb. Now his Ranger buddy has to wait until he clears the climbing wall, transitions to the repel line and down before they can move on to the second tower.

From there they need to run the 80 yards to the third and final tower for this lane. The mid-day temperature is over 90 degrees and the humidity is in the 80s. The Ranger two-man team is pushing on, to the third objective. They will climb a knotted rope up the first side and then another FRIES air-assault descent to get down. This is where they need to dig deep. Seconds are points, and at the end of the second day, every point will count.