CAMP HALE — Staff Sgt. Cameron Daniels with the Army’s 10th Mountain Division always wanted the details of his great-grandfather’s service with that same division in World War II. A few months ago, before Daniels’ first trip to Colorado to celebrate the country’s historic ski troopers at Camp Hale, his grandmother gave him a scrapbook.
He learned that his great-grandfather, Wayne Peters, was killed in northern Italy’s Poe Valley in February 1945, after the division had stormed Riva Ridge and secured Mount Belvedere, marking a pivotal victory in the war. The division would go on to take Mussolini’s villa and by May 1945, Germany would surrender to Allied Forces.
“He trained right here at Camp Hale,” Daniels said during a break on a grueling 16-hour, 26-mile traverse from Camp Hale to Vail on Feb. 21. “I’m super excited about this whole thing, not only to continue the legacy with all these guys, of the 10th Mountain Division, but also continue my family’s legacy. What my great-grandfather did here is just unbelievable.”
On his trip to the Rocky Mountains this month, Daniels visited the Denver Public Library. He connected with a historian there and they accessed a hard-to-find file. They found his great-grandfather’s Bronze Star citation.
“Which my entire family has never seen,” he said. “We’ve all known he’s had a Bronze Star but no one knows how he got it.”
Daniels, who is from upstate New York north of Fort Drum, also found photos of Peters training at Camp Hale.
“Just being able to be here and climb on the same routes he’s probably climbed and ski the same tracks, it’s just great,” he says.
Every year, 10th Mountain Division soldiers from Fort Drum travel to Colorado for winter training and to celebrate the American ski troopers whose training at Camp Hale helped them topple German strongholds in the mountains of northern Italy.
Known as Legacy Days, the mid-February event celebrates the division’s pivotal 1945 battles, including the February 1945 attack on Riva Ridge that required soldiers to ascend a 2,000-foot, icy cliff at night to reach a critical German observation post and the subsequent siege on Mount Belvedere.
The 10th Mountain Division soldiers’ pursuit of skiing remains largely utilitarian. For nearly 80 years, the mission is to move efficiently through harsh environments while honing top-tier alpine skills. But, like all the skiers in the wake of 10th Mountain veterans who opened up the world of winter recreation when they returned from the war, they are having fun in the snow.
“That was scary for sure. Little bit of exposure there,” said 22-year-old Mac Forehand, a freeskiing phenom who regularly spins and flips off 80-foot jumps. “A different type of scary.”
Forehand was invited to spend two days this week with the 10th Mountain Division soldiers, climbing and rappelling in a snowstorm on cliffs where thousands trained in the early 1940s for European battles. Forehand dug snow pits to check avalanche hazards and spent several hours traversing from Camp Hale to Vail.
“It’s kind of crazy to see how much we have in common,” says Army Specialist Sam Shomento, who grew up in North Dakota and is based with the 10th Mountain Division in Fort Drum. “Especially since we are doing this from opposite ends of the spectrum, you know.”
Shomento enjoyed skiing with Forehand and appreciated the Red Bull-sponsored skier’s passion for the mountains. After training on the cliffs and eating cold-weather MREs, they skinned up a drainage to build a kicker and practice tricks.
“I think this experience can help me get into mountaineering more and maybe one day it can help them get into the park and rails and stuff,” Forehand said. “These guys are helping me a lot … just a huge learning experience.”
Shomento says his fellow soldiers call him “a climbing bum who wears multicam” combat camouflage. “But at the end of the day I’m a soldier.”
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“Sometimes you may hear that it’s hard to justify a mountaineering unit, but you don’t know where you are going to need to go and you need the capability to go everywhere,” Shomento said. “If you can fight in the mountains, you can fight anywhere. It’s unforgiving and the terrain is trying to kill you just as much as anyone else out there is.”
Look at Europe, Shomento said. Most European countries have elite mountain teams with soldiers who are expert climbers, skiers and mountaineers.
“The coolest question I’ve ever heard about this is: If the birds (helicopters) never came, could you get your boys back down the mountain?” Shomento said. “That’s why we have to keep training up here.”
Forehand, who won Aspen X Games Big Air gold in 2023 after his first-ever-in-competition double-cork 2160 earned a perfect score, has a strong connection with younger skiers. He hopes his time with the 10th Mountain soldiers will help him better share the story and history of America’s ski troopers as well as the possibility of serving in the military while fostering mountain skills.
“Hopefully the younger community in skiing can see these guys and start to learn more about the 10th and their role in American history and their culture,” Forehand said. “It’s just so cool to be here and see them in action in this place with all its history.”
The open-to-the-public Legacy Days events start with current 10th Mountain Division members joining WWII veterans and their descendants at a ski parade at Ski Cooper on Feb. 23 at 1 p.m. and the 10th Mountain Memorial ceremony at 3:30 p.m.
The Colorado Snowsports Museum is hosting a talk with the authors of the book “10th Mountain Division at Camp Hale” at 5:15 p.m. Feb. 23. A Black Hawk helicopter will land atop Vail ski area’s Avanti Express lift at noon Feb. 24 and the 10th Mountain Legacy parade in Vail Village begins that night at 6:30 p.m. The Ski Trooper Cup at Vail begins at 1 p.m. Feb. 25.