On Sunday morning almost 100 soldiers in the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB) boarded buses and vans to do the first annual 28th CAB Mountain Crawl. It's a 2.5 mile run from the fish hatchery on Fort Indiantown Gap up the mountain to the Hawk Sanctuary on post. It climbs almost 700 feet most of the climb is the second mile which averages 13% and mostly dirt road. The rest is rolling.
Group shot--first wave of runners.
I started running five minutes ahead of the group so I could take pictures of everyone finishing at the top. The first six runners passed me on the way up including first finisher 1LT Brian Marquardt, 3rd LTC Joel Allmandinger and 4th SSG Matthew Kauffman. I got pictures of them and the other fast folks at the top before they ran back down.
After taking about 40 photos at the top, I walked back down and snapped pictures of the rest of the runners in the second wave.
The last person to start up the hill was SFC Dale Shade on a mountain bike. I saw him as he rode up then again as he flashed past on the way down. We served together in Iraq. When I got back to the start I asked him if I could ride his bike to the top. He said "Sure."
It was soooooo much easier to ride up than to run. And faster. Especially coming back down.
