The first troops to join the war from Colorado’s Camp Hale were the Viking Battalion, comprised of Norwegian exiles and Norwegian Americans, who joined the war in Europe in 1943, most fighting in uniform, but some as spies for Wild Bill Donovan’s OSS, the pre-cursor of the CIA. By 1944, the Allies had liberated Paris & Rome, but the Germans stubbornly held the mountains north of Rome and Florence, despite numerous assaults. That winter, the 10th Mountain Division, specially selected for mountaineering, having completed months of rigorous high altitude training, including mountain climbing and skiing among the 12,000 foot peaks behind Camp Hale above, arrived in Italy to take over the assault. Despite heavy casualties, they pushed the Germans out of the mountains, across the next valley, and up into the Alps, before the Germans surrendered. One of the young 10th Mountain soldiers left for dead after terrible injuries in Italy was Bob Dole, who survived and served as US Senator for Kansas from ‘69 to ‘96.

President Biden recently made this area and some of the mountains beyond a national monument, managed by the forest service. At this point, there’s not a lot to see and the roads are in poor condition, but it’s easy to feel the altitude when walking around, even without 90 pounds of military gear. There are still alpine huts between the trails up on Machine Gun Ridge above, and after the war, many 10th Mountain Veterans helped start a boom in recreational skiing nearby in Vail and Aspen Colorado. Today, the 10th Mountain operates out of New York and is frequently deployed on dangerous missions abroad.