Camp Hale – We followed in the path of legends.
Retracing their route on skis across the Continental Divide, it was easy to imagine the faces of some of the state’s greatest ski mountaineers, who first completed this long-forgotten traverse from a valley near Leadville to Aspen some 62 years ago during World War II.
Paul Petzoldt. Fred Beckey. Glen Dawson. William Hackett.
These were the members of the Army’s elite 10th Mountain Division, immortalized in black-and-white photos along with 29 of their colleagues, partaking in a backcountry trek that was part military training and part pure alpinism.
For the six of us, completing the famed Trooper Traverse spelled a chance to chase history and re-create a trip that to this day stands for many 10th Mountain Division veterans as a highlight of their military experience.
“I remember my dad talking about it,” said David Christie, the son of a 10th Mountain soldier. “I’ve always wanted to do it, ever since he talked about it years ago.”
Christie enlisted the rest of us: his friend and veteran of many backcountry adventures, Mike Inman; high-peaks skiing legend Lou Dawson; backcountry guide Scott Messina; Dawson’s 16-year-old son, Louie; and me, the journalist and ever-reluctant snow camper.
While the troopers completed the 40-mile journey across three high passes in three days in mid-February with 60-pound packs, we would take a more leisurely five days in May – when the weather was relatively warm and the avalanche dangers diminished – and carrying superlight packs with just the minimum amount of survival gear.
“We want to travel as light as possible. This isn’t supposed to be a grind,” said Dawson, who first learned about the venture in a copy of the Camp Hale newspaper, pieced together the route through interviews with veterans, and first recreated it in 2001 with photographer-writer Brian Litz and friend Chris Clark.
The unbroken trail followed Half Moon Creek past the decrepit Champion Mill, up and over Darling Pass and into the North Fork of Lake Creek, and then over the Continental Divide and into the Lost Man drainage before climbing over the rugged Williams Mountains and dropping, finally, into Hunter Creek and Aspen.
On the otherwise uneventful first day, we made our way up Half Moon Creek, at one point wading through the knee-deep riffles, the numbingly cold water pouring into the plastic ski-boot shells protecting our feet against the rocks.
After climbing over Darling Pass and enjoying a steep ski descent on the second day, we set up camp early in the North Fork Valley, where Inman accidentally jammed his ski into a snowdrift and broke his binding.
“I knew I was in trouble,” he said, “when I saw the piece of my binding fly over my head.”
What could have been a tour-ending disaster was fixed by some good old ingenuity and three rubber ski straps that Dawson – an expert about touring bindings – rigged up to hold Inman’s boot in place. Remarkably, the repair held for the duration of the trip.
The third day proved the toughest physically. Almost entirely above timberline, we climbed over what Dawson has dubbed John Jay Pass – after the captain leading the original team from the 10th Mountain Division – and traversed across a steep, exposed slope to South Fork Pass.
The glorious descent on the west side, named the Trooper Couloir, consisted of 1,500 vertical feet of 35-degree snow into the upper reaches of the wide-open Hunter Creek Valley rimmed by giant ridges.
Enjoying a sunny, warm day, we camped by some open water below treeline and dined on freeze-dried food that tasted remarkably good after a long stretch. That night, though, the temperature dipped to 9 degrees, overwhelming our lightweight sleeping bags and prompting each of us to put on all of the clothing we carried.
At that point, Messina took over, expertly guiding us through the thick trees of the valley and painstakingly navigating by map, compass and GPS unit to the point where we crossed a lightly used route to the McNamara Hut, our luxurious lodging for the last night.
The 10th Mountain Hut System, a series of 12 rustic but comfortable backcountry huts, were established by veterans such as Fritz Benedict to allow others to celebrate the achievements of the fighting unit, which lost 997 men in the waning months of World War II.
Following fresh bear tracks on the trail out, we skied to the end of the snow and then hiked the last couple of miles into Aspen, winding up at the same bar at the Jerome Hotel where the troopers enjoyed a round of milkshake-and-bourbons called “Aspen cruds.”
“While it probably didn’t occur to the soldiers just how ahead of the time their journey was (they had greater things on their minds),” Dawson wrote in a history of the route for his popular ski-mountaineering blog at WildSnow.com, “their ‘trooper traverse’ ended up being one of the most forward-thinking and aggressive ski traverses ever done in North American mountaineering.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or at slipsher@denverpost.com.
High-country ceremony to honor troops
The 10th Mountain Division of World War II will have a ceremony at 11 a.m. today at Tennessee Pass on U.S. 24 between Leadville and Minturn. The guest of honor will be Col. Michael Kershaw, commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y. The Lake County High School Band will provide music.
