Military

9,000 troops en route to training ranges for 11th Airborne exercise

KUAC | By Tim Ellis

Published January 15, 2025 at 4:41 PM AKST

Convoys of Army vehicles like these will be rolling along the Richardson Highway from Fort Wainwright toward training ranges around Fort Greely over the next three weeks in the lead-up to this year's Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Training Center exercises. After it ends on Feb. 3, the soldiers and their equipment will return to Fort Wainwright and Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson. — Convoys of Army vehicles like these will be rolling along the Richardson Highway from Fort Wainwright toward training ranges around Fort Greely over the next three weeks before, during and after this year's Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Training Center exercises.

Army officials advise area residents convoys will be rolling during Joint Pacific Multinational Training Center

Thousands of soldiers from Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson made their way up the Parks Highway to Fort Wainwright over the past week en route to a big field-training exercise. And starting early next week, a total of 9,000 soldiers from Wainwright and JBER will be headed south on the Richardson Highway to the Donnelly Training Area near Fort Greely.

The military vehicles in the Army convoys will include Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks, HEMTTs, like these.

Officials with the 11^th Airborne Division say area residents should expect continued military activity along the Richardson Highway before, during and after this year’s Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Training Center exercises.

“We just want them to be advised that they will have a large amount of military traffic on the roads pretty much through the end of January, very beginning of February,” says Lt. Col. Leah Ganoni, a division spokesperson.

Ganoni said there’ll also be a lot of activity in the skies over training ranges near both Wainwright and Greely, especially in the Donnelly Training Area, or DTA.

“There is going to be an increased amount of both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft traffic, in and around Fort Wainwright, so Fairbanks, and the DTA area and Fort Greely,” she said. “And again that’ll be both fixed-wing -- so, C-130s, and rotary wing air traffic, including our CH-47s, our UH-60s, our Blackhawks, things like that.”

Ganoni says Air Force personnel and U.S. Marines also will participate in the exercise that’s held every year around this time to test the servicemembers’ ability to operate and fight in an Arctic environment.

The newest iteration of the Army's Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle, or CATV, will be tested during this year's JPMRC.

They’ll be joined by allied service members and international partners, including units from Canada and Mongolia.

Also during the 11-day exercise, the servicemembers will conduct extensive cold-weather testing and experimentation on drone aircraft and a new version of a tracked articulated vehicle called a CATV, or Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle.

“One of the pieces of equipment that we are getting in Alaska that's unique to the 11th Airborne Division is called the CATV,” Ganoni said. “We have gotten a whole new shipment of those here, and so we will have more of those in the rotation this year.”

And because it’s an 11^th Airborne exercise, it’ll also include a large-scale parachute drop into the Donnelly Training Area.

After the exercise winds up on February 3^rd, the JBER-based units will head back on the Richardson and Glenn Highways. And Fort Wainwright-based units will return on the Richardson Highway.