Beautiful but punishing: Filming the Commandos' tough mountain warfare exercise
Beautiful but punishing – two apt words to describe the experience of filming in the Sierra Nevada mountains for six days on Exercise Green Dagger.
I was following members of the UK Commando Force as they were put through their paces at the US Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Centre in California.
Mountain lions, bears and coyotes lurk across the landscape, while the Royal Marines face 30-degree temperatures and altitudes of up to 3,000 metres.
Testing conditions deepen the physical challenge
First off, the altitude will absolutely take your breath away. It took us days to acclimatise to the conditions.
The views are mesmerising – it's such a vast landscape, with Yosemite National Park visible on the far horizon. However, there's no time for sightseeing!
It's tiring climbing while carrying all of our filming kit. However, this is nothing compared to what the UK Commando Force are doing, so any complaints would fall on deaf ears!
Just me and my internal voice are having those conversations, apart from the odd chat and exchange of glances to my colleague Richard, a former Royal Marine and reservist who is experiencing and filming the training centre along with me.
Despite it being 30°C every day, at the furthest range of our cameras, we manage to film small patches of snow on the highest peaks.
You can't help but feel in awe of this place, but I'm very relieved I'm not taking part in the gruelling exercise which lasts for several weeks.
No time to be a tourist
Whenever I'm on location, I always bring a stash of my favourite tea, coffee and snacks. We were heavily relying on coffee when we arrived – the journey to get to California ended up taking 24 hours.
We laughed, despite our exhaustion, as we dragged our suitcases past all the slot machines at Reno Airport. I'm sure all the other guests could barely imagine the adventure we were embarking on.
Everyone else was most likely arriving to gamble across the myriad of casinos of this mini-Vegas in the middle of nowhere – "the world's biggest little city", as the signs describe it.
After crashing for one night at a nearby hotel, we drove for two hours the next day and had a mini briefing before starting work.
Our first filming location involved a short but very steep hike, and then the real work of interviews and capturing the action began.
Thankfully, halfway up, Richard suggested someone film a shot of us walking, which gave us time to catch our breath before continuing on.
For most of our time there, we were cutting around on MRZRs [a light tactical vehicle] to get to most locations, apart from one day when we were taken by truck and nearly got stuck down a path which was most certainly not meant for most vehicles!
Our Royal Marines and USMC media minders skilfully got us out, and we found another route up to the mountains.
Filming on day one ran well into the evening. We were fortunate enough to get a behind-the-scenes look at the drones they were using while out there, along with a piece of kit described as a "Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak" – more on that to come on our website later this week.
Marvellous mules
One of the highlights of this trip was filming with the Marines and getting the rare chance to do the Animal Packing course, which teaches them how to transport kit and equipment on horses and mules.
The course chief tells me it's a very much overlooked skill in this digital age, where the natural focus is on technology.
Two of the mules even managed to upstage one interviewee. Hermon and Abrams (named after a previous course commander who worked with Abrams battle tanks) started to play in the back of the shot, and I interrupted the interviewee mid-sentence to capture them having a cute kiss.
One day, I ended up standing in the middle of a stream as the Marines rode their horses through it.
The water was refreshingly cool and a welcome relief to the intense heat. I took my time lifting my camera and tripod back out of the water, hoping I wouldn't trip and then have to call the boss to explain any expensive kit-based accidents.
This reminded me of the time when a member of 84 Squadron, who was named after a Simpsons character, had accidentally dropped my GoPro from a Griffin helicopter into the Med when I was based in Cyprus.
Final thought
Before we left, the marines were preparing for the final part of Exercise Green Dagger, which would see them working for 2nd Battalion 4th Marines, playing the enemy against 1st Battalion 5th Marines.
It's an opportunity to test themselves and to try out a variety of ideas for tactics that they will be drawing on the next time they fight for real.
It's always a sobering thought every time I cover a training exercise – when the call comes, these are the people who will put their lives on the line for all of us.
The best thing about my job is getting to see life through so many different eyes.
After nearly eight years of getting glimpses into the military world, this is another chance to share their stories, to try to convey what life is like for them in between conflicts and the daily dedication given, again and again, by those who choose to serve.
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