For the sake of speed, they were moving without their 50-kilogram rucksacks and spare ammunition. But then they were running low and needed special optics equipment.
Under fire, Cpl. Ed, 25, of Manuels outside St. John's, Nfld., ran the 100 metres back down one side of the ridge and up the other - and then back again with their gear in tow.
They were 3,500 metres high. At such altitudes, the air was gaspingly thin even at a brisk walk. Although extremely fit, Ed was nearly passing out after the two-way sprint, with AK-47 rounds nipping at his heels.
But Ed, who's developed an uncanny Sean Connery imitation, didn't stop there.
Ed grabbed his M-203 grenade launcher and started firing at the al-Qaida fighters who were giving them trouble from a nearby creek bed.
"We don't know what happened," said Alex. "All we know is, their firing stopped."
The snipers also helped extract American troops in trouble.
Under cover of darkness, they and their U.S. special forces comrades led soldiers of the Airborne out of the danger area, scouting ahead for enemy threats and bringing the Americans up a little ways at a time until they eventually linked up with friendly forces.
"Things had to happen, man," Alex said.
They slept the night. All the next day they were under mortar fire - and off and on for the next nine days and nights.
"The mortars were the worst thing," said Master Cpl. Warren, 30, who was born in Owen Sound and grew up in Kincardine, Ont.
Warren knows about mortars; he's a qualified mortarman.
Mortars are an infantry battalion's longest range weapon. Lobbed from up to 5,684 metres away and guided by forward observers, they pack a powerful punch. They don't have to be terribly accurate. Their kill radius is 40 metres. Shrapnel flies in all directions, tearing apart limbs, heads, torsos.
Mortarmen and the forward observers, known as fire controllers, bracket their targets, adjusting their aim from the outside in - one to the left, one to the right - narrowing their range and bearing until they hit their mark.
At one point, the three Canadian snipers were pinned down by mortar fire in a dry riverbed. They were caught out in the open. The rounds came as close as 10 metres.
"They were bracketing us, walking them in," said Warren. "We'd move and they'd adjust fire. Eventually, they ran out of rounds, or they just gave up. I don't know."
They all escaped unscathed physically, but Warren admits the experience will stay with him a long time.
The incoming shells sounded like large birds fluttering their wings, he said. The sound changed as they came closer.
"You could hear the fins rotating as they came in," he said, making a noise like a spinning roulette wheel. "It's a sound I'll never forget."