In 1942, as the United States hurried to war, one of the most novel experiments in the U.S. Army took shape high in the Colorado Rockies. Thousands of civilians went to work to create a cantonment for an elite division of up to 17,000 soldiers who were to train in snow and cold weather. Private land was purchased, the few residents relocated, and U.S. Forest Service land was transferred to War Department administration. Bulldozers spread 200,000 cubic yards of fill across the valley floor to create a sturdy foundation. Carpenters hastily hammered together barracks, a hospital, a gymnasium. A highway was rerouted, a ski tow installed, and the babyish Eagle River was yoked into a ditch that was as straight as the street next to it. Within seven months, the wilderness 120 miles southwest of Denver that had been known as Eagle Park became one of Colorado’s largest cities, Camp Hale.

Camp Hale was celebrated for the distinctiveness of its mission, its location and its recruits. The army believed it needed an elite division schooled and toughened in the world of vertical warfare, its soldiers able to ski or climb rock with ninety-pound rucksacks in the steep-walled fjords of Norway, the glaciers of Austria or the volcanoes of Alaska.

With a base elevation of 9,200 feet, the highest elevation for an army post before or since, Camp Hale was certainly cold enough. From the post, the Tenth Mountain Division ski troopers practiced warfare by marching in white camouflage gear onto above-treeline mountain ridges, bivouacking amid hulking cornices in temperatures that shivered to thirty below, testing a new generation of outdoor gear as well as themselves. Young and ambitious, many set out on weekends to explore the same territory, some marching up 14,000-foot peaks in winter.

Never before did the army have a special division of ski troopers, and this one attracted the famous—acclaimed Norwegian ski jumper Torger Tokle, Dartmouth ski coach Walter Prager, miscellaneous Olympians and scores of fiercely anti-Nazi former ski instructors from Austria. Noted mountaineers Paul Petzoldt and David Brower signed on, as did Rainier mountaineers Dee and Kay Molenaar. Rounding out the ranks was an array of lumberjacks, ranch hands and others familiar with the ways of the hills.

Skiing was then largely confined to the economic upper crust, so a strong strain of Ivy League ran through the division. So did self-confidence and intelligence. One estimate of an average IQ of 150 may have been more boast than fact, but it reflects the uncommon competence of the mountain troopers. Reflecting their quirkiness was the division’s newspaper, the Ski-Zette: instead of a pinup girl, it had a pinup mountain.

In Italy’s Apennine Mountains, where Axis forces had rebuffed three challenges in the western portion of the Gothic defense line, the Tenth Mountain Division burst through after two pivotal mountaintop battles. The division’s Camp Hale training proved invaluable there. In bloodied fighting that largely explains the Tenth’s wartime death toll of 999 men, the heaviest casualties suffered in the final three months of the war, the ski soldiers punched northward across the Po River, reaching the underbelly of Nazi resistance in the Alps by the time Berlin fell.

After the war, these Tenth Mountain Division veterans distinguished themselves in the woods and mountains to a degree unrivaled by veterans from other divisions. Brower, of course, fought the good environmental fight with the Sierra Club. Petzoldt founded the famed National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyoming. Bill Bowerman coached among the nation’s best track athletes in Eugene, Oregon, where he used his wife’s waffle iron to create the prototype of Nike shoes. Many others created ski areas, magazines, equipment and so forth. There was a governor, several writers, businesspeople and a presidential candidate, Bob Dole. Although he hadn’t trained at Camp Hale, Dole was pressed into the Tenth Mountain Division as a combat replacement. The story of the Tenth has been retold in at least a dozen books and two films.

But after the war, the bustling city of Camp Hale was disassembled. Disappearing in stages were the barracks and offices, even the gym where Ronald Reagan’s first wife, Jane Wyman, had displayed her winsome charms and Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson had pummeled the thin air. Although some use was made of the camp in later years, by 1965 the last of the land was transferred to the U.S. Forest Service, becoming part of the White River National Forest.

Remaining are only a few foundations and the rifle range, the concrete target holders standing like gravestones. There are also street signs and interpretive panels, both recent efforts to share the history of Camp Hale with visitors. Motorists too hurried to linger can see something is different merely by glancing at the grid of streets.

The Eagle River and its tributaries also remain straight and narrow, a model of parochial school posture. In a valley of bogs, where willows once swayed, water leisurely hewing to gravity, the river looks like an irrigation ditch from a corn farm.

And some believe that’s just the way it should stay. At the prodding of the Tenth Mountain Division Foundation, a veterans organization, the Forest Service nominated Camp Hale to the National Register of Historic Places. It was so designated in 1992, an attempt to honor the history of Camp Hale and the soldiers who trained there. Designation would not, said at least one local Forest Service official, preclude restoration of the valley to its pre-army state. But others disagree.

CLASHING VISIONS

Within the Forest Service, as well as outside, there are two clashing visions of Camp Hale. Historic preservationists, including the veterans, want to see the valley left very nearly as the army left it. Biologists, hydrologists and others want to see the meanders restored to the Eagle River. Complicating the picture are plans to spirit away more water from the Eagle River across the Continental Divide to cities in metropolitan Denver. Ironically, if restoration were to occur, it might be achieved as a byproduct of that diversion.

Firm in opposing river restoration are Tenth Mountain veterans represented by Earl Clark. Retired in Denver, Clark joined the army when he was twenty-three, choosing the Tenth Mountain Division because of its mountaineering and skiing. He brims with pride still when talking about the war record of the Tenth. “We not only knew everything the average soldier knew, but we also had to learn mountain survival and skiing and so forth, skills that the average soldier just didn’t have.” It’s with special pride that Clark notes the first division sent to Afghanistan in 2001 was the reactivated Tenth Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, New York.

Equal to his pride is his disdain for “tampering with the stream.” Doing so, he says, “would be against the wishes of the Tenth Mountain Division Foundation. We would oppose that very strongly.” He doesn’t say, but others will, that the Tenth Mountain Division veterans remain politically connected, their accomplishments still revered on an almost weekly basis.

Clark sees no gain from restoring the Eagle River, only loss. “It would destroy what the camp was. The historic site is Camp Hale, not the valley before it was Camp Hale.”

This isn’t the first time restoring the river has been discussed. In 1989, a wildlife biologist on the White River National Forest, Stephen R. Mighton, assembled a plan that he thought struck a balance. The lower half of the park would be returned to its native ecosystem, and the top half kept intact to honor the war record. Within that compromise he envisioned creating 600 acres of wetlands and thirteen miles of river habitat and constructing an interpretive center to tell the story of Camp Hale and its importance to the war and to skiing.

Mighton figured it would take a congressional appropriation of $4 million to $5 million, and there was support from the army, Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited.

“We had more people ready to throw money into it than you could shake a stick at,” says Bill Andree, a state wildlife biologist. When Mighton moved on, the plan sputtered and died. Instead, Camp Hale was named to the National Register of Historic Places. Bill Kight, the White River’s heritage resource officer, believes that designation tips the balance in favor of historical preservation. “I feel like we beat ’em to the punch, in one sense,” he says.

A 1998 report suggests so. Edited by Kight and prepared by Steven F. Mehls of Western Cultural Resource Management, it states that the Forest Service must “manage Camp Hale in a manner consistent with its preservation.” The plan frowns on river restoration. “From the perspective of cultural landscape preservation it is necessary to understand that the channeling of the Eagle River is a crucial element of the Camp Hale site,” the plan states. In other words, for visitors to understand this temporary army post, they must see the river as the soldiers saw it—straight, not meandering as the fur trappers saw it.

“To allow the River to return to its former channel or it to take active steps to re-establish the meanders in the river through Camp Hale would be an adverse effect to this National Register site,” states the plan. “It is suggested that rather than change the river’s course, alternatives for wetlands development should be carefully examined.” Those wetlands, says the plan, could be created at the north end of the park, where warehouses were located, instead of the core, where barracks briefly stood. “While this would be considered an adverse effect to the Camp as a National Register site, the overall impact would be considerably less and could be more easily mitigated than to allow the River to return to its former channel.” However, adds the plan, visitors should be advised that soldiers saw no wetlands during World War II.

A RARE OPPORTUNITY

Hydrologists have a different reaction when they see Eagle Park. “You see that big, wide valley,” says Mark Weinhold, hydrologist for the White River National Forest. “It’s just anomalous to see something straight going down the middle of it. You don’t see something like that unless it’s made to be.”

Weinhold sensed opportunity when he first saw the park several years ago. Most wetlands losses, such as those from highways, are irreversible. But the army long ago left Eagle Park. “That place stands out as an obvious place to get a fairly significant bang for your buck in terms of restoration,” he says. “When you look at the national forest as a whole, you don’t see too many instances of this kind of disturbance on that scale.”

No new plans have been drawn for restoration. If anything gets done soon, it’s likely to be part of a water storage project. Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs have water rights in the Eagle River basin. Other cities clustered along Interstate 70 from Vail westward are also interested in more water storage. Drought, now in its third and most severe year in Colorado, is hastening interest in getting something done sooner rather than later.

One configuration would involve using the underground aquifer at Camp Hale. Under the valley floor is a dam of rock. During plentiful spring runoff, water could be pumped into the aquifer and pumped out as needed. Creating wetlands and a meandering river could be part of the mitigation. “It’s not unreasonable, if [the diversion project] is approved, to think there would be some mitigation,” says Weinhold.

By comparing the river’s loops from a photo taken by landscape photographer William Henry Jackson in the nineteenth century with a current topographic map, Weinhold estimates that the river channel is at least 40 percent shorter than it used to be, perhaps more. Calculation of wetlands loss will take field investigation.

Andree, the wildlife biologist, did the same inspection nearly twenty years ago. He estimates that to restore the Eagle River and Resolution Creek, which was also channelized by the army, would double the length of stream. “There is no other place in Colorado that I know of,” he says, “where you can add five miles of stream.”

River restoration would enhance historical interpretation, says Andree, not mar it. “To me, a lot of people would get a lot more out of the rifle range if they were near ponds and people realized what was there before.”

He also says that past management, which quietly paid tribute to Camp Hale, helped cause a menacing invasion of toad flax, a noxious weed. “What do you see out there right now? Toad flax. It’s a weed-infested gravel bar.” What happened, Andree says, is that the topsoil was buried in 1942. The noxious weed can do better in the poor soil. Also, because of what the army left, vehicles can drive across much of Camp Hale at whim. That disturbance further accommodates noxious weeds. Andree also says that Camp Jeep, a week-long event at the site sponsored by Jeep-Chrysler for several years, further enhanced the weed problem.

The final decision maker is the forest supervisor, Martha Ketelle. The law gives her discretion. The National Historic Preservation Act, under which Camp Hale was designated on the national register, says any proposal that affects the qualities of a site that cause it to be significant provokes a process. Under that process, the Forest Service is forced to consult with an advisory council, in this case the State Historic Preservation Office, a division of Colorado government.

In this consultation, the Forest Service must outline the proposal and alternatives and request comments. The state office can recommend against the proposal or suggest mitigation. But the final authority lies with the Forest Service. In that sense, it’s like an environmental impact statement. The law outlines a process; it doesn’t mandate an outcome. Kight, the forest’s heritage resource officer, sees the onus as being on the advocates of wetlands restoration. “The historic designation came first, and now any wetlands restoration has to take into consideration how it will impact the site.” He does, however, see potential for compromise. So does Cal Wettstein, the district ranger in this case, although he seems to come down on the other side of the gray area. “This was a sinuous stream channel and wetlands long before 1942, when they built Camp Hale, so that should take precedence,” he says. But both can be achieved, he says.

Weinhold doesn’t expect restoration to pre-army conditions, either. “Nobody is going to take Camp Hale and turn it into what it once was. That’s never going to happen. For one thing, what are you going to do with 200,000 cubic yards of fill?” he asks. “We’re just trying to accommodate the uses and make it a little more biologically appealing.”

Can the story of Camp Hale and the Tenth be told without keeping the river in a straightjacket? Kight says no, basically because the Tenth Mountain vets say no. “I would ask, What members of the public are as passionate about wetlands restoration? I haven’t seen them come forward, and until I do, I am going to stay on the side of the Camp Hale veterans.”

THE GREATEST GENERATION

However, something more girds Kight’s stubborn passion—a respect for those of “the greatest generation,” as television news anchor Tom Brokaw has called them.

“The World War II veteran is the last true American hero that we had, as far as I am concerned,” Kight says. “You look at all the recent books and other attention paid to World War II veterans, and they are just now getting their due. They were the citizen soldiers. They truly did fight for world freedom and peace. If we forget that in our history, what do we have when called upon to do the same? What do we have to call upon, if not our history of the true freedom fighters?”

Clark sees preservation of Camp Hale as perhaps his last effort to burnish the reputation and legacy of the Tenth Mountain Division. “I’m eighty-three, and the youngest of the vets is seventy-six or seventy-seven. We’re fading from the scene. Those of us who can talk about it are very close to being gone, and therefore if we’re going to perpetuate the memory of the men who made this marvelous contribution, then it has to be in the type of thing we’re talking about here. I feel very strongly that’s the case.”