It’s some of the most exciting news for Colorado in a long time — but it’s not official yet — it’s what other news organizations, first the Los Angeles Times, then picked up by the Vail Daily and the Denver Post have reported, but so far there is no official confirmation. According to them, President Joe Biden will travel to Colorado next week to designate Camp Hale and the Tenmile Range as a national monument.
Camp Hale is located in the Eagle-Holy Cross Ranger District within the White River National Forest. The exact boundaries appear to be a bit murky, but it appears there would be two separate, non-contiguous areas of the national monument; to be known as the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument. One area would surround Camp Hale in Eagle County, and a second monument area would be located in the Tenmile Range in Summit County.
Training at Camp Hale. Image Aspen Times
We don’t know where in the state Biden will visit (although you’d think Camp Hale itself would be logical). An administration official is reported to have confirmed with the Los Angeles Times, that there are officials working out the logistics. Those logistics would seem to be a bit sticky – it isn’t like Air Force One can land at an airport anywhere here in the mountains — what runway would they use? Perhaps the Marine One helicopter may come into play.
The significance of Camp Hale and its role in the training of the 10th Mountain Division of the U.S. Army for European Alpine terrain battles in World War II has been well-documented. Some 14,000 troops trained at Camp Hale, getting a harsh lesson in fighting in winter conditions. The advocacy to get Camp Hale designated as a national monument has been around for years, and the push is on. Every year there are fewer and fewer WWII 10th Mountain Division veterans left alive.
There has been an attempt in the last year to create a new designation for an important site like Camp Hale, called a “National Historic Landscape, “but given the makeup of the U.S. Senate, it hasn’t gone anywhere. So Colorado has trotted out its leadership over the past several months, hosting national officials at Camp Hale, such as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Next, a letter from U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, along with Gov. Jared Polis and Rep. Joe Neguse, went to Biden, and then there was a local rally in support of the designation.
“Mr. President, I know that you’re supportive of the CORE Act, but in the meantime, as we work in the Senate to get that done, are there things that we can do now and should do now?” said Vilsack. “Because there is a high expectation of you and of me, Mr. President, and frankly, I don’t want to disappoint these people,” Vilsack said during a visit to Camp Hale in August.
Even Thursday, Eagle County Commissioner Matt Scherr, said the Board of County Commissioners had not received any official communication from the Biden administration.
“It’s still being tweaked,” Eagle-Holy Cross District Deputy Ranger Smith told the Vail Daily, on Sept. 29, about the monument boundaries. “The soldiers trained in that entire valley obviously, and up on the hillsides, but the monument itself is down on the valley floor, according to the last (map drawing) I’ve seen.”
Given that there is still a training area reported to contain unexploded WWII ordinance (an area visitors to the site are warned away from), drawing the boundaries is surely an interesting exercise.
Featured image: Camp Hale was set up to train the 10th Mountain Division soldiers for fighting in the rough terrain of the Alps to win World War II. Image courtesy of Colorado Encyclopedia.
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