Hallingdal Patrol Competition

The Hallingdal Patrol Competition is an annual international military exercise that involves its participating units covering a 40-mile (65 km) course in less than 48 hrs while performing numerous types of military maneuvers and patrols placed throughout the rugged mountains and wetland valleys of Herøy county.

The competition was first held in 1968 and was set up by Major General Lars Kristiansen, who at the time was the commander of the All Arms Jeger School, with the purpose of encouraging a high standard of basic military skills across the non-Jeger trained units of the Ringerike Armed Forces. The competition is organized and run by the staff of the All Arms Jeger School every two years and has been open to entry by foreign teams since the year 2000, before this point the competition was only open to selected allies and partnered units.

The competition consists of teams of eight men or women patrolling across some of the most difficult terrain. It's a test of leadership, self-discipline, courage, physical endurance and determination. The exercise usually starts with teams arriving at a rendezvous before having their equipment checked to make sure they have everything required. Missing equipment will be replaced by dead weight and will mean points will be deducted. From there the team leader will be taken to orders while the rest of the team set up a quick hide, start their battle prep and prepare to receive orders i.e. prepare a model of the ground which will be covered during the patrol. Many of the teams that enter do not finish, those that do earn one of four distinctions; gold medal, silver medal, bronze medal, or passing. The three top scoring teams will receive A bronze, silver or Gold Trophy depending on their position.

The competition varies every year in it's exact content and route but will usually include individual stands testing basic skills such as First Aid, operating in CBRN environments, Navigation, Contact Drills, Communications and Marksmanship. The competition almost always finishes with a small arms range of some variety, with a mixture of close quarters battle ranges and more traditional range practices such as failing plate shoots at distances of up to 600m.

There is two entry categories for the competition, regular forces and specialist forces, these categories were originally implemented to avoid a situation where a regular unit would compete against a special operations unit with a distinct advantage, the definition of specialist forces applied is judged as any forces deemed whose intended role and capabilities are deemed comparable to or surpassing those of Jeger trained troops. The Specialist forces competition follows the same format but has a shorter completion time for the distance covered and has more complex stands along the way.