Bridgeport, California. (October 18, 2023): For scenic value, few places can compare to this remote training area near Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park with its numerous lakes and streams that are a fisherman’s paradise.

For the Marines, however, it serves a vastly different purpose.

In this photo by Lance Corporal Juan Torres, a Marine with 1st Battalion,1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, uses a zipline to cross a canyon during Mountain Training Exercise 5-23 at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center.

Nested in the Toiyabe National Forest, some 6,800 feet above sea level, the Mountain Warfare Training Center (MWTC) is a United States Marine Corps installation that trains Marines and allied forces to fight and survive in cold weather at high altitudes.  

The center was established in 1951 to give cold-weather training for replacements bound for the mountain battlefields of frigid South Korea. After the war, the school was renamed the "Mountain Warfare Training Center" and dedicated to preparing Marines to defend NATO’s northern front.

This unique facility features stables with pack animals, specialized technical mountaineering and ski equipment, and multiple small arms and stream crossing sites.

Conditions are harsh.

With elevations as high as 11,500 feet, the Center is an exceptionally dry environment and winters here are long and unforgiving. The mountains accumulate up to eight feet of snow for trainees to negotiate as they evaluate wintry weather clothing and equipment traversing streams and other mountainous obstacles.

The Center holds both summer and winter Mountain Leader Courses along with specialized programs in mountain medicine and freezing weather survival. The Center trains thousands of students each year from all branches of the U.S. armed forces and from Britain, Norway, Sweden, Chile, Peru, Israel, Argentina, Netherlands, Kyrgyzstan, Canada, and Germany. The Center is currently staffed with approximately 250 Marines and 50 Civilian-Marines, all permanent personnel.

To most Americans, a leisurely fishing trip to the 54,000 acres of the Toiyabe National Forest is a visit to paradise. For the Marines, it is something entirely different.