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The World War II exploits of the 10th Mountain Division of the U.S. Army are well documented and legendary. This is not however the conventional war story that has been told many times over. It is a unique tale of like-minded men who were brought together for a specific purpose, and who, in finding their love of outdoor sport enhanced by their war-time experience, were at the forefront in popularizing skiing and other outdoor sports in post-war America. In the late 1930's rock climbing and skiing were relatively new sports in the U.S. When and if America entered into war on the European continent, it was felt there was a need for men who could handle extremely cold and mountainous conditions and so the idea of an elite alpine fighting force was born. The Tenth was the sole U.S. Army division trained on snow and rock and the only one ever to have grown out of a sport - (mountaineering and skiing). Dubbed the "ski troops" by the press, and popularized in magazines such as Life, the 10th Mountain Division remains the only military division recruited by a civilian organization, the National Ski Patrol System. The division had a huge percentage of professional and amateur athletes, college scholars, and potential officer candidates, and as the last U.S. division to enter the war in Europe, it suffered the highest number of casualties per combat day. These athlete-veterans tapped into broad demographic and economic changes affecting Americans, and profoundly shaped the American outdoor experience in the decades following World War II. Through hard work and force of character, they created what we know as the "ski industry" and founded the first American destination ski resorts. The Pre-War European Connection The popularization of alpine skiing in the United States was mostly propelled by events in Europe and their subsequent export to the States. The German ski and mountain films of Dr. Arnold Fanck and his action star, Hannes Schneider, were the first to influence American skiers. The films played in America starting in the early 1920's and ran right up to the war.[1] European skiers had come to the United States much earlier. In the 1800's skiing existed in the Rockies with snowshoeing and the long boards with one pusher pole as the only way to get around in the winters. Norwegian and Danish immigrants were thick on the ground in the Mid-West too. These early pioneers were highly proficient at a form of skiing that we would now recognize as Nordic in practice (or more accurately mountaineering) and reveled in the jumping sports as well. Skiing had emerged as the national sport in Norway and was part of a broader nation-building process stressing a unique cultural agenda that was picked up and amplified by other nations.[2] The Norwegian national sports ideology held that sport should be much more than a pastime. It should serve the fatherland and strengthen its defense by making better soldiers and improving public health. This ideology was expressed as a principle that involved strength, toughness, and moral development. This romantic, patriotic idea of skiing became an essential part of Norwegian identity (after the split with Sweden) and other nations particularly Finland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland adopted many of its tenets.[3] Those social ideals were not generally accepted in the U.S., where the strong, silent individual pioneer was revered for his inner determination and perseverance. However, alpine skiing and mountaineering as it was primarily practiced in the North East and the Western mountain ranges by a small and generally elite crowd did borrow equipment and technique if not cultural enrichment from their European counterparts. In 1931 a Boston ski club organized the first Ski Train up to New Hampshire. The idea took off and soon a number of Northeastern railroads were running special trains to the few rudimentary ski slopes then in existence. The first three Winter Olympic Games were rather limited by today's standards. Number one was held at Chamonix, France in 1924 and 1928's games were at St. Moritz, Switzerland. The 1932 Winter Olympics were held in America at Lake Placid, New York and that event signaled the initial spark of the modern era of skiing in the United States. Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the games on February 4th, with 252 athletes competing from 17 countries. The U.S. won the most total medals with 12, followed by Norway and Canada. Only four Nordic events were contested, including cross-country, ski jumping and a combined event. No alpine skiing events were competed and the sport was still not ready for prime time. The nascent alpine sports saw their coming of age tested in the first "modern" Winter Olympics in 1936, held in Germany. The Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, was the pre-war skiing event. "It had Adolf Hitler, it had the first nationwide Olympic effort and the first huge central Olympic ski stadium. It had the first Olympic alpine races, and the first Olympic women's ski races. There was worldwide media coverage in press and film. The Fourth Winter Olympics was an international spectacle".[4] This was truly the first time that skiing caught and held the attention of a broad section of Americans. The alpine racing events came across in the media as especially dramatic, and the fact that Hitler was showcasing Nazi Germany through sport meant that the buildings and venues were first class. The U.S. men's team represented the very first generation of American alpine competitors, mostly arising in the previous half-dozen years from intercollegiate and inter-club competition. Alpine competitions themselves had been sparse at best. There had been three national downhill championships beginning in 1933 and the first national slalom had been held less than a year before the Olympics. Alpine skiing was a brand new sport in the U.S.[5] The International Olympic Committee clung to the ideals of amateurism for most of the 20th century. Back at the 1936 games the IOC overruled the International Ski Federation and declared that ski instructors were professionals-and therefore banned from the games. To protest the decision, Austrian and Swiss skiers boycotted the event. Predictably, the other European teams ran away with the competition, but the seeds had been sown in America. The Winter Games had for the first time been solidly established as an international celebration of the sport, and a highly popular one as well. Ironically, the immediate aftermath of the hugely successful Garmisch Olympics was a twelve-year war-enforced hiatus until St. Moritz in 1948. In January 1934 the first rope tow in the United States was built in Woodstock, Vermont. Funded by Robert and Elizabeth Royce, the owners of the White Cupboard Inn, a local inventor named David Dodd managed to copy an obscure Canadian contraption. For five hundred dollars a rope tow was up and running just a few weeks later on a hillside pasture on Clinton Gilbert's nearby farm. The tow was modest: it had 1,800 feet of continuous rope which wound its way through a series of pulleys and was powered by an old Ford Model "T" engine.[6] But as modest as Woodstock's rope tow was, many have pointed to its opening as the birth of modern skiing. There can be no doubt that rope tows helped to popularize Depression skiing by taking much of the drudgery out of the experience. In 1936, Life magazine pictured a skier at the Union Pacific Railroad's new Sun Valley Resort in Idaho. It was the first alpine skier on the cover of an American magazine, and Life reported that despite the Depression, alpine skiing was a "national mania" and opined that "winter sports have ceased to be a patrician fad and have become instead a national pastime".[7]Life exaggerated. Skiing equipment was hard to find, and although there is confusion on the number of rope tows in existence in North America it certainly was no more than two hundred combined with a handful of other types of lifts both rudimentary and cutting-edge. So while most people were too busy trying to make ends meet, there was a very motivated minority who were pushing the infant sport forward. What impressed the press was the glamour and mystique of the foreign ski instructors coming to the States and going to the very few high-profile areas such as Sun Valley, and Stowe. These masters generally came from the Arlberg School in Austria, where in the 1920's Hannes Schnieder perfected the snow plow, stem-turn and christiana as the three-step "Arlberg" teaching method. In 1938 Schnieder escaped the Nazis and the Anschluss and landed in Conway, NH at Mt. Cranmore, which had some unique uphill transportation, the kiddie-car-like Skimobile which was installed in 1938 and ran, winter and summer, for fifty-two years. Skiers happily rode the Skimobile and took lessons from Hannes' instructors.Another popular New England area that led the way technologically before the war was Cannon Mountain in Franconia, NH, which opened North America's first aerial tram to skiers in 1939. By the time it was replaced on May 24, 1980, it had carried 6,581,338 people.[8] C. Minot "Minnie" Dole, the founder of the National Ski Patrol System (and the 10th Mountain Division), in his book Adventures in Skiing described an impromptu meeting held in the tiny lodge at Bromley Mountain ski area in Vermont in February of 1940 as the start of the effort to convince Washington to train American troops to fight in winter conditions. "Looking back, each member of the quartet could legitimately be called a founding father of the new sport of skiing in America...first was National Ski Association president Rodger Langley, who held the first alpine competitions in 1933; next was Harvard graduate Robert Livermore, who had raced on the Olympic team in 1936; beside him was Alex Bright, an influential leader of the Boston Ski Club, and finally Minnie Dole himself."[9] The talk turned to the Russo-Finnish War. In November of 1939, the Russians invaded Finland with 70 divisions and a thousand tanks. The tiny Finnish Army however, was proving very hard to beat due to winter conditions bogging down the Russian mechanized divisions and a Finnish offensive using highly trained ski troops. It was a classic underdog tale, and the Finns held out for three months, until weight of numbers and spring forced them to submit. The Russians lost 50,000 dead and suffered an immense loss of international prestige. Minnie wrote later that the Finnish resistance was a "perfect example of men fighting in an environment for which they were entirely at home and for which they were trained".[10] It was brought up that America had nothing to counter Hitler's famed mountain troops - the "Jaeger" battalions. "That very day the men at that table decided to write the War Department and offer their services."[11] The 10th Mountain Division Fully realizing that future battles could very well have to be fought in winter conditions, Dole began a campaign of pestering President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall to form mountain divisions. "He met a wall of indifference and opposition at the War Department but gamely persisted." Although still not convinced that such troops were really needed, "Marshall finally authorized the planning for the creation of three mountain divisions; [12] The National Ski Patrol System was the only nation-wide skiing organization at the time and therefore was picked to help recruit the new ski troops as the Army had no real knowledge of the actors in the sports of climbing and skiing. Dole contacted every ski resort and ski school as well as college ski coaches, and was able to get more than enough initial applications for the all-volunteer outfit. Expert skiers from around the country including many of the best European skiers fleeing the Nazis signed up. But the elite nature of the core units of the Tenth (and its subsequent strength in battle) came from a very selective process. The demographics of early skiing in America were sharply outlined through the acceptance of volunteers for the Tenth. "Skiing was primarily a sport for the well-off (in those Depression days, lift tickets could cost as much as three dollars a day!), many of the applicants came from Ivy League colleges. As a result, the 10th had a higher proportion of high-school graduates and college-educated young men than any other American division."[13] The unit also needed mountain climbers, outdoor guides, and lumberjacks - men accustomed to living and surviving in the wilderness. Also required were cowboys, mule skinners, and veterinarians, for the division would have thousands of pack mules and horses at a time when the Army had all but phased out animals. The National Ski Patrol recruiters encouraged all outdoorsmen to volunteer, and they ended up attracting Forest Service and Park Service rangers, trappers, hunting guides, and ranchers as well as skiers. Charley McLean, a racer from Dartmouth College was the first soldier to report. On his heels was Swiss world champion Walter Prager, who had been coaching skiing at Dartmouth. Four of the eight men on the '36 Olympic team were his boys. The Tenth collected some of the most famous skiers and mountain men from America, and more than a few from Europe. Hannes Schneider, Friedl Pfeifer (an Austrian Sun Valley instructor), Herbert Schneider, and Arthur Douchette all had come from Europe to coach college teams or instruct skiing, and ended up getting American citizenship so they could fight with the Tenth. Famous mountaineers besides Prager and Pfeifer included Paul Petzoldt who had been first to climb the second-highest peak in the world, K-2, and David Brower, who had first ascents of a number of Western U.S. peaks. Famous competitors included Pfeifer, who had won the Arlberg-Kandahar downhill, Herbert Klein of Sugar Bowl, California, Andy Ranson and Fritz Kramer of Stowe, Vermont, and Johnny Litchfield, Percy Rideout, and Florian Haemmerle of Sun Valley, Idaho. Torger Tokle was arguably the most famous of all: the Norwegian émigré was the reigning world ski-jumping record holder.[14] But the sporting elite were not just outdoorsmen. Bob Pastor, who fought Joe Lewis twice to over ten rounds in his heavy-weight boxing career, was just one of many who volunteered. Yet after the initial rush, recruitment slowed. Of all places, help came from Hollywood. Winter Carnival was the first American alpine ski movie appearing in 1939. Starring Ann Sheridan, it was loosely based on the Annual Dartmouth Winter Carnival. The genre sputtered forward until 1941, when Darryl Zanuck, a skier and the head of Twentieth Century Fox, decided to do a film on the latest ski techniques so that ski troops would have a basic idea of the sport from which to gauge their interest. While it was not sponsored by the Signal Corps, the Army lent some of the best skiers in the world (including Walter Präger) to Otto Lang, the ski school director at Sun Valley for filming the twenty-minute short. The Basic Principles of Skiing starred an unknown Alan Ladd as a new recruit in the ski troopers.[15] It was a beautifully filmed piece with amazing skiing and was seen around the country. The media love affair with the Tenth was further enhanced. More films followed and helped to secure the (perhaps fanciful and misleading) mystique of the ski troops popularizing the sport with a much broader audience.[16] While the original volunteers comprising the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment lived at Fort Lewis and trained (with much media fanfare) at nearby Mount Rainier, in Washington State, a new home was being constructed for the ski troops in an isolated, alpine valley 9,480 feet above sea level in the Colorado Rockies west of Denver. In the span of just ten months, a permanent camp, known as Camp Hale, (or alternately: "Hell") housing nearly 15,000 men and 5,000 animals (primarily mules) had sprung up.[17] A new regiment, the 86th, had also been formed from raw recruits and in January 1943, training began in earnest: skiing in winter and mountain climbing in summer. For the uninitiated recruits it was anything but fun. Construction was not finished when troops moved in during November, mud claimed vehicle after vehicle, and pollution from the frequent trains stayed trapped above the base, producing a nasty hacking cough in hundreds of soldiers.[18] Camp Hale's altitude also proved troublesome to the soldiers, making exercises and maneuvers more difficult than usual. Many soldiers were hospitalized for frostbite and exhaustion during their 1943 winter tactical exercises. The training was very difficult, particularly for recruits in the 86th and replacements in the 87th precisely because part of their training was learning to ski. To that end, the longest T-bar in the world at the time was engineered by the Tenth and built atop Tennessee Pass on Cooper Hill (still a publicly-owned ski area: Ski Cooper). Love of the outdoors amongst these men was not universal. Bob Ellis in See Naples and Die had a very different view of the Tenth: "I came to believe that some guys were unhinged, if not certifiably demented, who, after climbing impossible slopes all week with 90-pound rucksacks as well as weapons, would go hiking in the same mountains on weekends."[19] Two important by-products of the very long training were to directly impact skiing in America after the war. The first was the love of the outdoors instilled in many of the men (and particularly love of Colorado) and the camaraderie instilled by mountaineering. "While skiing was essentially an individual sport, climbing was fundamentally cooperative."[20] One man belaying a rope held another man's life in his hands. The uniqueness of the training replaced individual goals with a visceral loyalty to each other which became the real strength of the Tenth. The least quantifiable aspect of the training was the love of the outdoors that was instilled in so many of the soldiers who up to the point of arriving in Colorado had no experience of it. The original members already had it, but multiple diaries and letters as well as other published and unpublished accounts make it plain that there were at least hundreds of converts to the outdoor life. The second by-product of the Tenth's training was the huge advancement made in the development of both skiing and mountaineering gear. The Tenth was responsible for the development of all of the specifications for this gear ordered by the Quartermaster General's office.[21] Before World War II, the number of skiers in the country who could "live out of their packs for many days on expeditions into rough country, in all kinds of weather" probably numbered only a few hundred.[22] Equipment suitable for genuinely rough use was simply not available in any kind of numbers. The Mountain and Winter Warfare Board was formed, and through the Tenth's equipment wing, a new Dupont nylon rope was developed that revolutionized mountaineering, and skiing equipment technology advanced quickly as well.[23] Another amazing development was the "Weasel" the world's first snow cat, which was designed for snowy alpine maneuvers. A box-like car sat on large tank-like tracks. But "they were dangerously top-heavy, and dozens of soldiers were injured when the cats turned over without warning".[24] These advancements in gear combined with huge inexpensive post-war materiel surpluses (brought on by over-ordering by the Quartermaster General's Office) were later to help jump-start skiing in America. The War Years No European-based U.S. general wanted the 10th. It had huge problems with logistics as it was laden with animal-based transport and tons of "extra" gear. They were too late to be effective in Alaska, where elements were sent in to deter Japanese landings. Finally, late in the war the 10th got their chance. In the stalemated fight in Italy, the Tenth climbed up the "impenetrable" Riva Ridge in darkness with no artillery support and subsequently annihilated the elite German mountain troops holding the heights of Mt. Belvedere in the Appennines. It was probably the high point of the war for the Tenth, both for press coverage and for confirmation that the training would indeed come in handy to the war effort. After spearheading the attack against the Germans all the way to the river Po in the spring of 1945, General Mark Clark called the Tenth the greatest unit ever to fight in Italy. British Field Marshall Montgomery had this to say: "The only trouble with the 10th Mountain Division was that the officers and men did not realize that they were attempting something that couldn't be done, and after they started they had too much intestinal fortitude to quit. The result was that they accomplished the impossible."[25] In his excellent diary of events during the war with the Tenth, Harris Dusenbury recounted what America already knew after the war: the 10th were heroic and victorious: "Our hearts went out to the 992 that died. We faced enemy artillery, mortar fire, small arms fire and crossed fields with mines in the thousands. We advanced with stealth and with verve and daring. We lost only twelve as prisoners but our wounded numbered 3,849. The 10th Division's casualties were a significant part of all of the casualties of the Fifth Army during the 114 days we were engaged at the front in Italy. We took the high ground and we always held it."[26] The "best and the brightest" took it on the chin. "If a division was in action for three or more months the probability was that every one of its second lieutenants, all 132 of them, would be killed or wounded".[27] Of the 19,734 men who served in the 10th Mountain Division in Italy, including 5,500 replacements, twenty five percent became casualties. Of these, twenty percent were wounded and five percent killed. This was the highest average casualty rate in the Italian campaign.[28] Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole (no relation to Minnie) would be one of those grievously wounded lieutenants who were carefully weeded out by the German snipers and artillery. On April 15th 1945, Dole, a replacement, was ordered to lead an ambush patrol outside of Castellano and was mauled by mortar rounds: permanently disabling his shoulder and arm. World-renowned ski jumper Torger Tokel died in the same offensive. Germany surrendered on May 8th 1945. Tired and suffering heavy losses, the Tenth celebrated war's end on June 3rd, with what seemed uniquely appropriate for them: they organized a ski race on the remaining spring snows on Mt. Mangart, where the borders of Italy, Austria, and Yugoslavia come together. The fastest was Walter Prager, the former Dartmouth coach. "It seemed a fitting way not only to end a war but to begin a new world".[29] Post-War Entrepreneurs The G.I. Bill, federal public spending and a generally fast-moving economy due to America's role as world banker and manufacturer of all things, created an economic scenario for people to pursue leisure activities to a greater extent than ever before. People had more money after World War II than ever before. As incomes rose Americans aggressively entered the consumer culture and never looked back. Millions of car purchases created additional mobility. "By 1950, daily, weekend, and vacation leisure hours constituted over 34% of Americans' waking lives, and in 1959 each American took over one week of paid vacation."[30] On the home front, skiing had continued to exist, but very much under the radar. "Skiing might well have died out if not for the concentration of skiers in the Tenth..." The remaining skiers in the Division "...assured continuity, providing much of the manpower for the expansion [of skiing] in the next two decades".[31] The love of the outdoors and skiing in particular dominated many of the survivor's lives and helped push for the development of skiing into a big name sport. Tenth veterans were at the forefront of making skiing an outdoor destination "vacation" industry after World War II. They designed and built ski areas, ski lodges, ski lifts and improved ski equipment. They started ski magazines and opened ski schools. The emerging ski industry had a lot of economic and demographic help in its rise to become a national sport. It must be noted that at the same time there was a corresponding deluge of cheap surplus equipment which allowed thousands of Americans to get the highest quality set-up available in the world at the time, for approximately $25 to $75.[32] In The Ski Troops, author Hal Burton estimated that 100,000 pairs of skis and ski-mountain boots, close to 150,000 pairs of mountain pants and parkas, hundreds of thousands of pitons and more than a hundred other items including ice axes, steel-framed rucksacks, gas stoves and nylon tents were produced for the mountain troops.[33] It cannot be overstated that availability of inexpensive, high-quality ski and mountaineering gear was a major factor in the dramatic rise of outdoor sports in the post-war decade. The subsequent rapid advances in skiing technology (spurred on by increasing participation in the sport, creating markets for new ideas) made skiing easier and easier and had a huge effect: a continuation of the boom in skiers. Business and Pleasure Friedl Pfeifer expanded the ski resort at Aspen and later Peter Seibert founded its closest rival, Vail, the two giant resorts of the era. In all, some 62 resorts were either founded by, directed by or had ski schools run by 10th Mountain veterans; two thousand of them had gone into the ranks of ski instructors or patrolmen.[34] "This infusion paralleled the emergence of an American public with fast-growing income, swelling the ranks of U.S. skiers and setting off an amazing burst of American invention".[35] Many members of the Tenth returned to Colorado and supplied the energy behind the post-war skiing boom. The Tenth created a critical mass of men who wanted to start up skiing as a business so they could keep skiing, live in the mountains, and earn some money in the process. A 1949 article in TheDenver Post reported that: "Much of the new skiing enthusiasm in Colorado is a direct result of the U.S. Army's Tenth Mountain Division which trained at Camp Hale near Leadville. Ex-tenth mountaineers are bobbing up all over the continental divide. Some are aiding the noble efforts of the National Ski Patrol. Some are instructing. Others have installed ski tows and opened new areas. All these Cooper-hill protégés are Colorado and winter-sports boosters and many have shifted year-around residences to the mile-high state."[36] Credit can be laid at the feet of the men of the Tenth for combining business with pleasure. Before the war ski areas were essentially focused on local ski clubs or a relatively small up-scale clientele. The emphasis in the post-war economic marketplace was garnering broad demographic trends for profit. What is now known as the ski industry was a direct offshoot of seeking as much business as possible in the chosen sport: alpine skiing. Ski areas became corporate entities serving the needs of the post-war consumer culture and the nation-wide growth of tourism. Aspen Before the war, this weary mining town of about 500 souls had one ski trail, the Roch Run, (partly serviced by an archaic chain-driven lift) and one hotel, the Jerome. During the war soldiers stationed at Camp Hale left whenever mortally possible. Some took the train to Denver, and others explored the western slope. Leadville, a still functioning mining town, was only six miles distant, but was out of bounds since the building of Camp Hale due to the readily available prostitutes. As a result, many soldiers turned towards Aspen. Sun Valley (and Tenth) ski instructor Friedl Pfeifer was captivated by the place. After a cross-country march to the town from Camp Hale in 1943 he said: "Even as the townspeople cheered our arrival, I was filled more with the beauty of Aspen than I was proud of our accomplishment. The mountain peaks looming over the town made me feel like I was returning to St. Anton."[37] Returning to Aspen after the war, Pfeifer had grandiose plans, and eventually enlisted Chicago industrialist Walter Paepcke to help fund the initial expansion of Aspen. It is hard to imagine the immense difficulty it takes to expand a ski area today, but just post-war the government required little from organizations that wanted to use federal land. The Forest Service was small at the time and generally supportive of ski area development within reason. "Aspen's ranger saw Pfeifer at work on the mountain one day; they talked; and the ranger got him a Forest Service permit to build lifts on the White River National Forest the next day".[38] The first major project was the (then) world's longest chairlift. It was nearly three miles long and rose almost 3000 vertical feet. A little more than a year after Pfeifer's return, not even a year and a half after the war, Aspen was being hailed by the New York Times as "the winter sports center of America".[39] "As with other ski areas and ski towns, Aspen joined the ski industry when ski enthusiasts teamed up with willing investors to build a ski area that would attract destination skiers (those staying for a week or more) as well as local skiers and competitors."[40] The resultant Aspen Ski Corporation forged a powerful role for the former members of the 10th Mountain Division. They became the initial arbiters of what became "resort skiing" in America. Tenth veteran Dick Durrance came to Aspen in October of 1947 to replace Frank Ashley as general manager for the Aspen Skiing Corporation. Durrance had been a star racer for Dartmouth College and competed in the 1936 Olympics, worked for Averill Harriman (the founder of Sun Valley), helped to develop the ski area at Alta, Utah, and after the war he had a job designing skis for Thor Groswold in Denver. Durrance's job was to manage the area, try to improve business, and attract more skiers to Aspen. His efforts included making Aspen Mountain more skiable for the average vacationer, and most notably to attract the 1950 FIS World Championships to Aspen. No European ski championships had ever been held in the United States before. "The early 1950's thus marked a significant change in Aspen's development--its entrance into the tourist business full-time, year-round."[41] The vision of Aspen's modern cadre of dreamers would shape the ground-up design of its major competitor in the next valley north. Vail Pete Seibert grew up in New Hampshire and became a nationally ranked ski racer in the late 30's. While in service with the Tenth in Italy, he was badly wounded, and came to Colorado to recoup his health. He once again became nationally ranked, with no left kneecap. After working at Aspen for a time he dreamed of founding a ski area himself. Seibert and his friend, uranium prospector Earl Eaton, found the exact spot for a perfect ski area in Colorado's Rocky Mountains in 1957, and in order to keep it a secret created a fictitious rod and gun club to buy the 550-acre ranch below it (at $110 an acre!) that became out of nothing, Vail Village.[42] The Mountain itself was ideally situated between the Gore and Sawatch mountain ranges, about a three hour drive west of Denver. After much wrangling, the Forest Service finally allowed construction to begin in 1961. Major investors could now be found, and Vail Associates, Ltd. was born. Vail opened in 1962 with Colorado's first gondola, and a beautiful pedestrian village patterned on the little alpine towns Pete had seen during the war.[43] Tenth veterans Bob Parker ran the marketing and Bill "Sarge" Brown became the mountain manager. Unlike Aspen, Vail's business plan from the start was to break even on operations and make money on real estate. In 1963, Colorado obliged by passing a law that allowed condominium ownership without ownership of the land. This fueled the boom in vacation home-ownership in the Valley and "a condo in Vail soon became a national status symbol".[44] The Town of Vail was incorporated in 1966 with a mayor and Town Council. By 1969 SKI Magazine would call Vail one of the "super-resorts of skiing".[45] John Jerome of Skiing Magazine summed it up best after a visit in 1975: "Vail invented fun skiing. It is so distinctive a category of skiing that it perhaps should be designated 'Vail-type' skiing. But the interesting thing is that in 13 years of operation, Vail has now fed so many people into the sport - so many who have carried Vail's vision on into the wider world of skiing, so many from the Midwest and the East - that we've come to identify Vail's product with the entire West...Everyone who has started a ski resort in the last 30 years has always talked about building a whole new town around the skiing facility, but Vail is the only one that pulled it off."[46] A New Outdoor Institution Similar stories to the ones above, albeit with somewhat less press attention, were happening all over the United States. The rise in the popularity of skiing proved to be an excellent example of the power of Tenth veterans in shaping sport in America. That America needed such a sport after the war is perhaps debatable, but with Tenth veterans pushing so hard for their vision of the future business of skiing, the "if you build it they will come" philosophy worked better than anyone could have possibly predicted. As Vail founder Peter Seibert told The Denver Post in 1985: "the ski industry would have developed without us but probably ten years later".[47] By the 1970's the economic imprint of skiing and other outdoor activities was manifest. Before the war there were at most a few hundred rope tows on generally tiny mom-and-pop slopes. "By 1970 there were over seven hundred full-fledged ski areas in America, most with chairlifts and base lodges and trail grooming machines descendant from the 10th's machinery."[48] Alpine skiing was supporting large rural populations in the American hinterland. Remote regions, which before 1950 could have done without skiing, now in 1970 could no longer make ends meet without it. Whenever there was a snow drought, sizable lodging, entertainment and recreation businesses simply dried up, leaving thousands unemployed. The economic power of skiing was in evidence everywhere there was a resort. Skiing had come of age in the 1970's. "The ski regions were by and large blessed with economic prosperity because skiers had been blessed with a cornucopia of technological advances which made the sport attractive."[49] Those technological advances were in many cases influenced by Tenth veterans. The data indicates that the huge boom ended soon afterward, as the energy crisis and a few recessions consolidated the ski industry into larger corporate players. Even with a demographic leveling out in the sport of alpine skiing, there has been a helpful rise in snowboarding, and according to the 2002 Economic Census Industry Series Report there are still 379 ski areas in the United States with gross receipts of $1,340,813,000, payroll of $431,147,000 and 58,513 full-time employees. Concurrent resort real estate sales are unavailable, but they certainly dwarf those numbers. Morten Lund in Ski Heritage wrote: "The men of the 10th formed a small, but determined self-elected elite that constituted a brotherhood in sport."[50] There can be no doubt that the returning soldiers of the Tenth did a great deal to enhance the mystique and accessibility of outdoor sports for a highly receptive post-war population. The Tenth's legacy is leadership by example and creative business endeavors that popularized a little-known sport and along the way passed along an abiding passion for the outdoors to future generations. Postscript: Other Notable Tenth Veterans This is only a partial list of the men of the 10th Mountain Division who influenced skiing in post-war America: Max Dercum, Larry Jump, Thor Groswold, and Dick Durrance formed Arapahoe Basin Inc. CO., in 1946. Gordy Wren- managed Loveland Basin and then Steamboat Springs. Barney McLean- ran Hot Sulphur Springs, Co. Crosby Perry-Smith and Pop Sorenson went to Winter Park, CO. Steve Knowlton and Leon Wilmott started Ski Broadmoor, CO. Gerry Cunningham- opened Gerry's Mountain Sports, in Denver. Merrill Hastings- published Skiing Magazine in Denver. Monty Atwater- became America's premier avalanche expert. Fritz Benedict- influential mountain architect who founded the 10th Mountain Division Memorial Hut System in Colorado. Bil Dunaway- made the first ski descent of Mount Blanc in France on skis, then settled in Aspen Colorado, becoming editor of Skiing Magazine. Toni Matt- world famous ski racer and instructor. First to go straight down the Headwall at Tuckerman's Ravine in the third Inferno race held in 1939. (He cut the old time in half). David Brower- First Executive Director of the Sierra Club. Re-focused the club on the issue of preservation and made it into the world's most powerful environmental organization. Nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Ed Link and Roe Duke Watson are credited with creating Crystal Mountain, WA. Paul Petzolt- Brought the Outward Bound concept to the U.S. and subsequently founded the National Outdoor Leadership School. Dick Stillman- 30-year career in the Forest Service, established and maintained the High Alpine Avalanche Research Station at Berthoud Pass, Colorado from 1950-63. Grant Ford- Director of the National Ski Association (now USSA) and served three terms. In 1957, he was appointed Secretary of the National Ski Association's Olympic Ski Games Committee. Benjamin Duke Jr.- Ben was elected to the Board of Directors of Vail Associates in 1966 and served for nearly 20 years. Paul Duke- managed Breckinridge, CO. for many years. Clif Taylor- Taught skiing at Aspen, Aspen Highlands, Mad River Glen, Loveland, and Winter Park . Created the Graduated Length Method of ski instruction. John P. Litchfield - Started the Aspen Ski School where he became Co-Director. John was also an original investor in the Aspen Ski Company as well as the original owner and operator of the famous Red Onion Restaurant in Aspen. Nelson Bennett- managed White Pass, WA. Wilfred "Slim" Davis-devoted 40 years to the US Forest Service. He was an early innovator of ski area design, slope layout, avalanche control and ski area safety. Curt Chase- an innovator: in 1946, he organized, trained and directed the Aspen Ski Patrol. Steve Knowlton - a member of the US Olympic Ski Team (1948) and the FIS Ski Team (1950). From 1963-73, Steve formed Colorado Ski Country USA and became its first Director. Gordon Wren- directed the Loveland Basin ski school and was manager of Steamboat, CO. Ralph "Doc" Des Roches- was executive director of Ski Industries of America. Alf Engen- directed the ski school at Alta, UT. Luggi Foeger- directed the ski school at Badger Pass, CA. Bill Healy- created Mt. Batchelor OR. Nick Hock- associate publisher of Ski Magazine. Dev Jennings- executive director of Ski New England. Dave Judson- founded Otis Ridge, MA. Dick May- managed Wildcat, NH. Jack Murphy- founded Sugarbush, VT. Bob Nordhaus- created Sandia Peak, NM. Bud Phillips- directed the ski school at Mad River Glen, VT. Percy Rideout- co-director of the Aspen Ski School. Kerr Sparks- directed the ski school at Stowe, VT. Thad Thorne- managed Attitash, NH. Laverne Trepp- founded Pine Mountain, MI. Jack Tweedy- V.P. and attorney for the Vail Corporation.[51] Notes [1] Richard W. Moulton, "Film's Role in Popularizing Alpine Skiing in America". in Aspenglow Ski Mountaineering History Project http://www.alpenglow.org/ski-history/notes/book/besser-1983.html (Accessed April 21, 2005) 190 [2] Matti Goksoyr, "Popular Pastimes or Patriotic Virtues? The Role of Sport in the National Celebrations of Nineteenth-century Norway". in The International Journal of the History of Sport. (Vol. 5, no. 2: September, 1988) 230 [3] Ibid., 241 [4] Morten Lund, "The Historic First Four Olympic Games". in Skiing Heritage: A Ski History Quarterly. (Fourth Issue, 2001: Vol. 13 No. 4) 32 [5] Ibid., 34 [6] Blake Harrison, "The Technological Turn: Skiing and Landscape Change in Vermont, 1930-1970". In Vermont History (71, Summer/Fall 2003) 197-8 [7] Peter Shelton, Climb to Conquer: The Untold Story of World War II's 10th Mountain Division Ski Troops. (New York, NY: Scribner, 2003) 16 [8] "When Skiing Was!", in Ski Magazine, (January, 1996) [9] Shelton, 8 [10] C. Minot Dole, Adventures in Skiing. (New York: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965) 22 [11] Shelton, 13 [12] Flint Whitlock, "America's Skiing Soldiers". in Sundance Resorts: A Series of Commissioned Essays. (Sundance, UT: Sundance Press, 2003) 2 [13] Whitlock, 3 [14] Anne Gilbert, "Post War Aspen". in Aspen Historical Society: Roaring Fork Research Fellowship. (May, 1995) 28 [15] Moulton, 2 [16] Shelton, 50 [17] Rene L. Coquoz, The Invisible Men on Skis: The Story of the Construction of Camp Hale and the Occupation by the 10th Mountain Division 1942-1945. (Boulder, CO:, Johnson, 1970) 15 [18] Gilbert, 30 [19] Robert B. Ellis, See Naples and Die: A Ski Trooper's World War II Memoir. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1996) 49 [20] Shelton, 87 [21] Ibid., 38 [22] Hal Burton, The Ski Troops. (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1971) 79 [23] Shelton, 89 [24] Peter W. Seibert, Vail: Triumph of a Dream. (Boulder, CO:, Mountain Sports Press, 1st edition, 2000) 52 [25] William Johnson, "Phantoms of the Snow". in Sports Illustrated. (February 8, 1971). [26] Harris Dusenbery, The North Apennines and Beyond, with the 10th Mountain Division. (Portland, ME: Binford & Mort Publishing Co., 1998) xv [27] Ellis, 140 - Ellis cites Paul Fussel's article: "The Real War 1939 - 1945. in Atlantic Monthly. (August 1989) [28] Earl E. Clark, "How It All Began". in Tenth Mountain Division Association Inc. Web Site. http://10thmtndivassoc.org/ (Accessed April/May 2005) 1 [29] Siebert, 26; see also Shelton, 220 for a discussion of the event. [30] Gilbert, 27 [31] John Henry Auran, (ed.) America's Ski Book. (New York: NY:, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966) 46 [32] Auran, 47; See also Shelton, 233 for additional support for this argument. [33] Burton, 188 [34] Seibert, 55 [35] Morten Lund, "Skiing in America". in Snow Country Magazine. (New York Times Company Pub. September, 1998) [36] "The Tenth Mountain Division Veterans Impact the Ski Industry". in the Denver Post (January 9, 1949) [37] Gilbert, 28 [38] Gilbert, 29 [39] Shelton, 229 [40] Gilbert, 30 [41] Gilbert, 32 [42] Seibert, 84 [43] Shelton, 231 [44] Seibert, 111 [45] Ibid., 110 [46] John Jerome, "Visiting Vail". in Skiing Magazine, (Nov. 1976) [47] Shelton, 229 [48] Ibid., 229 [49] Lund, "Skiing in America" 23 [50] Morten Lund, "A Short History of Alpine Skiing". in Skiing Heritage: a Ski History Quarterly. (Vol. 8 no. 1: Winter 1995) 39 [51] There are many sources for 10th veterans who influenced post-war sport. A number are on the Internet. See also Shelton, 33-50; Burton, 187; Gilbert, 30; and Seibert, 55. |
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