It rained all Friday and when I say rain; I mean Alaska in the fall rain, 35 degrees. When I got up Saturday I expected it to be a long rain day and I would be outside refreshing my technical rescue skill in the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group. I dressed for it my Mountain Hardware Gore-Tex shells with MTS layer underneath. I made some coffee and made a Salami sandwich for lunch.

I did a quick rearrange of my rescue pack. Knowing that we could get a call at any point during the day I got a small duffel and removed from my pack everything I would not need to the day training to stow in my truck. I took out; 3 litters of water, insulite pad, radio, avalanche rescue kit, food and cooking kit. Into my pack Gore-Tex rain shell, technical kit (9 parabiners, 2 prusiks, 1 Precell prusik, 2 Pulleys, 30 meters or 8mm, 2" webbing lengths (two each) of 20', 10' and 2' and my seat and chest harness.

I step outside, the sky is clear. Before the sky cleared in the night it froze....hard. Everything is covered in a layer of ice. I start my truck and load my gear.

I stop twice, one to get gas and once at one of Anchorage's ubiquitous drive through coffee stands. This one is my favorite, "the Hot Spot". Always with the friendly hot coffee girls.

I get on the Seward HWY at about 8:45 giving me 15 minutes to drive down to Boy Scout Rock about 8 miles across Anchorage and 8 miles down the inlet. Good thing this is not the Army. I make it there at 9:10am. It's light, but here on the inlet there is a low cloud layer. It's about 20 degrees and slightly windy. Burrr.

We split up into two groups, experienced and new to AMRG systems. My group heads to the top of the rocks to build a raise and lower system for a Litter and Attendant and show practice personal repel and ascend with a knot right in the middle of the vertical portion.

We take about 3 hours to got through the practice with seven people in the advanced group. During which time the sun comes out and it really warms up. I have a bit of trouble during the repel as the knot gets lodged into my ATC when my Prusik fails to catch where I wanted it to and I spend and extra 10 minutes fighting with that.

For the afternoon portion we practice building anchors. we build using whatever is around on the mountain side, and if you have not learned rescue rigging skills it might make you weary. We use Alders, rocks, whatever we have around. Not that it always goes right. But that is what training and practice is for. In all it was great day, good weather and good people. After we carry out all the gear I head over to the State Trooper Station where we have our gear cache and help put gear away.