“A TOUGH RECONNAISSANCE ASSIGNMENT” WITH THE 10^th RECON SOLDIERS OF CAMP HALE ON TRAVER PEAK, 1944 AND IN 2023

Traver Peak, 13,852

Clinton Peak, 13,857

McNamee Peak, 13,780

by gore galore

Modern mountaineers will not think of climbing Traver Peak in the Mosquito Range as a “tough reconnaissance assignment” but in the lost pages of Colorado mountaineering history it was just that on January 12, 1944, for seventeen soldiers of the 10^th Reconnaissance Troop from Camp Hale. And in order to tell their story I find that I must climb Traver Peak to familiarize myself with the peak and surrounding mountains.

The 10^th Recon was an infantry unit of about 150 men formed in late 1942 that included many of the nation's best skiers and mountain climbers as advisors and instructors for the training of soldiers for mountain warfare at Camp Hale and other sites.

Seventeen men were chosen for a high-altitude tactical operation in the Mosquito Range near Climax to carry out two experiments, one with certain types of short skis and the other, on methods of preventing cold and frost-bitten feet.

10^th RECON APPROACH, 1944

On January 11, 1944, the personnel of the 10^th Recon rode from Camp Hale to Climax on Fremont Pass arriving at 10 a.m. The patrol crossed the railroad tracks and proceeded up the valley for about a mile to the base of Mt. Bartlett where a route was reconnoitered to the high ridge connecting Bartlett, Traver and Democrat. The valley travelled is now the present-day glory hole of the Climax mining operations.

A route was selected up a snow-filled couloir that led for 2,500 feet almost to the summit of Mt. Bartlett, 13,500 feet. At 1:10 p.m. the patrol started upward carrying rucksacks, skis and poles hoping to make the saddle between Traver and Democrat for the night's bivouac.

But the climbing was exceedingly slow and strenuous. The steepness of the couloir forced the climbers to use short traverses. The kick turns at the end of the traverses were precarious due to the heavy rucksacks and the steep angle of the slope.

It was not uncommon for these soldiers to carry as much as 90 pounds in their rucksacks on these extended maneuvers giving rise to a Tenth Moutain Division marching song of “90 Pounds of Rucksack.”

By 4 p.m. the party was 200 vertical feet from the top. A decision was made to drop down a hundred feet where camp was made at 13,200 ft. on the steep mountainside.

MY APPROACH, 2023

The 1944 route of the 10^th Recon to Bartlett Mountain is of course not practical now because of the present-day mining operations. I decide that in order to intersect with the 10^th Recon on the Continental Divide at Clinton Peak I will hike from the opposite east side of the Mosquito range from Montgomery Reservoir along the three-mile Wheeler Lake Road to camp at Wheeler Lake, 12,160.

Although I am well past military eligibility age to carry 90 pounds of rucksack, I find that with only 20 plus pounds of rucksack on my back I have a much easier time in my summer approach along a fairly level road and even the final uphill grade to my campsite at the lake than the 10^th Recon did to reach their mountain campsite in the winter of 1944.

While the 10^th Recon is involved with short traverses and precarious kick turns up a steep snow couloir, I am faced with several muddy traverses through patches of willows to avoid the standing pools of water in the roadway.

At other times I have to step off the roadway and wait for the procession of 4WD vehicles to pass by on this popular back country jeep road.

In between the pools of water and the distractions of 4WD vehicles on my march toward Wheeler Lake I find that I have time to hum some verses of “90 Pounds of Rucksack.” It is a song about a mountain inn barmaid who jumps into a skier's bed with predictable results. One of my favorite partial verses goes like this:

You may have a daughter, You may have a son

Now if you have a daughter, bounce her on your knee

But if you have a son, send the bastard out to ski

Chorus

Singing ninety pounds of rucksack

A pound of grub or two

He'll schuss the mountains

Like his daddy used to do

And the reader would do well to look up the complete song.

10^th RECON ROUTE TO MT. TRAVER, 1944

The following morning the patrol moved out at 9:30 a.m. minus Pvt. CARL BRANDAUER who had a severe attack of altitude illness. Pvt. VAINO RAJANEN also stayed behind. They carried their skis to the top of a knife-edged ridge, a part of the Continental Divide at 1:00. The northeast point of this ridge is now known as Clinton Peak, 13,857 and the southwest point as McNamee Peak, 13,780. These peak names were not designated on the maps of the time.

At 1:20 lunch was taken, and a conference attended as to the further order of operations at the lowest point of the saddle of the Continental Divide between Mt. Bartlett and Mt. Traver. This saddle, 13,320 is at the base of the northwest ridge of Mt. Traver.

MY ROUTE TO TRAVER PEAK, 2023

I am moving at 6:00 from my camp at Wheeler Lake intending to intersect with the 10^th Recon route at Clinton Peak. I hike past the old, abandoned jalopy along the lake shore and climb the talus slide area above the lake to the beginning of the upper basin when I realize the pudding I ate for breakfast has settled in my stomach like a dead weight and becomes undigestible for much of the day.

It is an affliction I have had before when beginning strenuous activity at altitude such that sometimes I do not eat anything at all in the morning. It slows me down now terribly such that I realize I am not going to be able to follow the 10^th Recon route over Clinton and McNamee peaks to the Traver Peak saddle.

I now have my own “tough reconnaissance assignment” just to make it to the saddle where the conference was held and hopefully to Traver Peak itself. I press on up the basin climbing a snow field below the ridgeline as one of the last vestiges of winter to gain the saddle. I find though that despite my affliction and because of my early start time I am several hours ahead of the 10^th Recon.

I realize that I do not have to wait for the 10^th Recon to arrive because I know the events that will happen next and turn myself toward Traver Peak. And as such the “tough reconnaissance assignment” of the 10^th Recon begins with their later arrival at the saddle.

10^th RECON ON MT. TRAVER, 1944

It was decided that six men would go ahead, skirting the southwest face of Traver and if time permitted to climb Democrat, 14,142 and Cameron, 14,238 while the others would take the direct ridge route to the summit.

The six men were S/Sgt. WILLIAM HACKETT, Pfc. BURDELL WINTER, Pfc. WEB ANDERSON, Cpl. HORACE QUICK, Lt. WILLIAM EASTMAN, Lt. RUSSELL McJURY and Sgt. M. L. FINN.

Picking their way along the steep southwest side of the mountain they came to a stretch of deep gullies between finger-like sections of rock filled with four or five feet of powder snow topped by a layer of 8 to 10 inches of wind slab crust.

At the first gully one of the footholds of crust gave way as the last man was descending and “in a second he was sliding on the flat of his back, head down the sixty degree slope.” Lt. EASTMAN tried to grab a foot of the falling man but did not succeed.

Cpl. QUICK had reached the bottom of the drift and instantly realizing the man's helplessness and danger “in a flash reached out with both hands, and grasping the man's clothing swung him around to stop.”

Meanwhile Sgt. HACKETT was further testing the wind slab crust of the gully for avalanching and decided it was safe to cross. He made two steps when the whole thing let go from below and above him sweeping his feet out from underneath him. Sgt. FINN in his report describes what followed:

"No one could have possibly thought faster than Bud Winter did. He was just behind Sgt. Hackett but was standing below a rock which prevented the snow around him from avalanching. With his left hand he grabbed the rock, threw himself on the snow, and reached out with his ski pole with his right hand to Sgt. Hackett. 'Grab the pole' he yelled. Hackett did. He was just able to grasp the part below the snow ring and held on to it while the snow went out from under him, tumbling 2500 feet down the steep and rocky couloir."

In his book “Colorado's Thirteeners,” Gerry Roach describes a 2,150-foot couloir climb on Traver's southwest face of 34 degrees. This is probably “Hackett's Couloir” of 1944.

The second gully was approached with caution and appeared solid. Lt. McJURY and Cpl. QUICK went across when the wind slab slid and McJURY and QUICK were left clinging by their hands to the rocks. The rest of the party then crossed in safety with the wind slab gone.

At a third gully a safety method was improvised. As each member had two ski poles, the shaft of one ski pole was slid through the ring of another, with the wrist strap tied around the shaft. Six poles were thus joined to reach across with one man as an anchor on each side of the gully as the others crossed aided by the joined ski poles.

The rest of the traverse was uneventful but so much time had been lost negotiating the side of Mt. Traver that it was deemed inadvisable to climb Mount Democrat. They regained the ridge and ascended Mt. Traver from the south reaching the summit at 3:30.

On the summit the tracks of the other half of the patrol were noted of Lt. LOOMIS, Cpl. BORTHWICK, T5 McCAIG, Cpl. CHRISTIE, Pfc. SHORT and Pvts. PHILLIPS, SCOTT, BLACK and MADSEN by way of the northwest ridge summit route.

The six men of the traverse descended the northwest ridge route to where their skis had been left behind and realized they could have avoided all of the dangerous situations of the traverse that developed by using the summit route to begin with. The return to the bivouac on Mt. Barlett was quickly made.

MYSELF ON TRAVER PEAK, 2023

Most who climb Traver Peak will probably stay on the left side of the northwest ridge, but I made a point to cross over to its right side at some oddly placed steel barrels filled with metal parts and rocks. I did this in the hopes of finding the three gullies that the six 10^th Recon members crossed in that winter of 1944.

As I made my way higher up under the upthrust crests of the ridge, the tops of those gullies came into play below me and I could readily visualize “Hackett's Couloir,” “McJury and Quick's” gully, and the “ski pole” gully. In fact, I might have even heard someone yell “Grab the pole.”

It was a fulfilling final steps to the summit to be on a mountain that now has some meaning to me upon learning of a thrilling ascent of almost eighty years ago rather than just another high 13,000-foot peak.

The internet and guidebooks without knowing the history of these peaks refer the Clinton, McNamee to Traver traverse as the “Clipper” traverse. But looking across the ridge to Clinton Peak from my position on Traver Peak and knowing now the lost history of these peaks, I prefer to call it as the “10^th Recon Traverse” for those fifteen soldiers who first crossed this ridge on January 12, 1944.

CAMP HALE AND HOME, 1944 AND 2023

The 10^th Recon made their descent from Mt. Bartlett the next morning at 8:30 with the task of getting Pvt. BRANDAUER safely down the mountain. The patrol met the truck at a predesignated spot of the highway and headed for Camp Hale.

I made my own way off the mountain and down the Wheeler Lake Road humming a few more refrains of “90 Pounds of Rucksack” on the way home.

RETURN TO AND COMPLETING THE “10TH RECON TRAVERSE”, 2023

The thought of climbing Traver Peak but foregoing the “10^th Recon Traverse” because of my aforementioned discomfort was bothersome enough to me such that I returned on August 30 and foregoing breakfast from my camp at Wheeler Lake completed the “10^th Recon Traverse”.

I think because of my breakfast decision, I was now able to make decent time to Clinton Peak and survey the traverse. The couloir climbed by the 10^th Recon on Bartlett Mountain is no longer extant being chewed up by the mining operations long ago. But I could see the ridge to Clinton Peak that Lt. McJURY and Lt. LOOMIS' men had come up that day in January of 1944.

I followed the soldier's route across the ridge to McNamee Peak where according to the 14ers.com “Combo” route description “the summit is littered with cables and other mining junk.” The “mining junk” is actually the remains of TV antennas placed on top of McNamee in 1953 for cable reception at Climax.

At the saddle of the 10^th Recon conference below Traver Peak, Lt. McJURY'S men as noted went right on their traverse of the peak. I followed Lt. LOOMIS' direct ridge route to the summit to complete the “10^th Recon Traverse”.

10^th RECON SOLDIERS, 1944

During and after my preparations for my climb of Traver Peak and the “10^th Recon Traverse” in 2023, the thought occurred as to who those seventeen soldiers of the 10^th Recon were and what might have happened to them.

William Hackett and Russell McJury continued to climb mountains after the war and became well known in the mountaineering world. Some of the soldiers would return to Colorado in the post war years and for others I only know something of their Camp Hale days.

After the Mt. Traver climb and traverse, Sgt. WILLIAM HACKETT, Pfc. BURDELL WINTER, Cpl. HORACE QUICK, Lt. WILLIAM EASTMAN, Lt. RUSSELL McJURY, Sgt. M. L. FINN, Cpl. DONALD BORTHWICK, T5 ROBERT McCAIG, Cpl. NEIL CHRISTIE, Pvt. ANDREWS BLACK and Pvt. MATTIAS MADSEN would a month later become members of the thirty-three-man, four-day, fifty-mile Trooper Traverse on skis from Leadville to Aspen of February 21-25, 1944. I have to think that the experiments with skis on the "tough reconnaissance assignment" by the 10^th Recon played a part in the planning for the ski use on the Trooper Traverse.

WILLIAM HACKET (1918-1999) was probably the most prolific military mountaineer during World War II and in the post war years was the first to pursue the continental summits that would become known as the Seven Summits.

Bill Hackett grew up in Portland, Oregon. In 1933 at the age of fifteen he made an ascent of Mount Hood with the Boy Scouts and by 1941 had climbed Mount Hood sixty-one times by ten different climbing routes. He would eventually climb the peak some eighty-eight times.

In January of 1942 Hacket was drafted by the Army and joined the 87^th Infantry at Fort Lewis, Washington where mountaineers and skiers were training for mountain warfare. In July of 1942 Bill departed as part of a seventy-five-man detachment to Canada's Columbia Ice Fields to test vehicles that could transport troops over glaciated surfaces.

During his four months stay he made sixteen mountain ascents which included Mount Columbia, 12,293 feet, second highest in the Canadian Rockies, a ski ascent of Mount Kitchner, 11,499 feet and two ski ascents of both Snow Dome, 11,399 feet and Mount Castleguard, 10,115 feet.

In December of 1942 Hackett was ordered to Camp Hale where he became a mountain and ski instructor. While at Camp Hale he climbed fourteen Colorado mountains a total of twenty-two times. These included the 14,000-foot peaks of Quandary, Mount of the Holy Cross, Pyramid Peak, Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive.

In January of 1945 he was sent to Italy with the Tenth Mountain Division where he served as a combat commander. At the cessation of hostilities in northern Italy Bill was part of the establishment of a battalion climbing school.

During this time, he made four ascents in the Julian Alps including Mt. Mangart, ascents of the Klein Glockner and Gross Glockner in the Eastern Alps, two ascents of Mt. Marmolada in the Dolomite Alps and Mt. Vesuvius.

Hackett was honorably discharged on October 22, 1945, and a week later perhaps remindful of the incomplete Mt. Traver traverse to Democrat and Cameron completed climbs of Mts. Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln and Bross on October 27, 1945.

The Seven Summits

After a brief interlude Bill Hacket became a career Army officer training troops for cold weather combat. In his position he would make ascents of the North and South peaks of Mount McKinley a total of six times on five expeditions between 1947 and 1958.

In 1949 he became the first American to climb Aconcagua in the Andes of South America thereby becoming the first person to climb the highest summits in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1950 he climbed Kilimanjaro and in 1956 Kosciuszko and Mount Blanc then considered the highest mountain in Europe. He became the first person to climb five continental summits, the pursuit of which eventually became known as the Seven Summits.

Other high-altitude climbs were the first ascent of the North Peak in addition to the main peak of Mount Logan in 1959. Along with McKinley and the three high Mexican volcanoes climbed in 1946, Bill had now climbed five of the six highest peaks on the North American continent.

Bill Hackett's ultimate mountaineering goal was a Himalayan 8,000-meter peak. In 1960 he organized and led an American-German expedition to K2. The expedition reached an elevation of 23,900 feet before the early arrival of the monsoon season of storms forced their retreat from the mountain.

In 1963 Bill retired from the Army as a Major after a twenty-one-year career and returned to civilian life. He became the first military officer to be awarded the Army Commendation Medal for achievements in the field of international expeditionary mountaineering.

After a twenty-year absence from mountaineering, Hackett at the age of sixty-seven joined the Canadian-American Antarctic Expedition in 1985 to climb Mount Vinson but during the climb his pace slackened, and he returned to base camp.

In the autumn of his life Bill decided to finish climbing the Colorado “Fourteen Thousanders.” He had climbed about forty of them beginning in 1943 at Camp Hale through 1954. In September of 1992 he and a partner were only able to climb Red Cloud and Sunshine Peak. These were the last summits that Bill Hackett would climb in a lengthy mountain climbing career.

Bill Hackett died in Portland, Oregon in 1999 at the age of eighty-one.

BURDELL WINTER (1925-1945) was a ski racer from upstate New York when he joined the Tenth in 1943. He had a passion for fly fishing, and it was said he was the only person in the division that brought his fly-fishing outfit to the war. His zest for life was contagious among his fellow troopers.

In addition to the Mt. Traver climb and traverse he was on the 10^th Recon expedition to the Ten Mile Range when thirty-four men climbed Quandary Peak in July of 1943. His dream was to climb and ski in the Himalaya after the war, but those dreams were never fulfilled.

On April 14, 1945, Burdell “Bud” Winter was killed in action in Italy from mortar fire near Hill 913. He was twenty years old. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his actions. Uncle Bud's Cabin near Galena Mountain bears his name. His father penned these lines upon his death:

Sleep peacefully, my buddy boy, beneath Italian skies . . .

And may God give you silver skis,

To ski celestial hills,

And fishing rods and lines and reels

To fish those streams and rills.

HORACE QUICK was widely known at Camp Hale for his knowledge of wildlife and experience in cold weather survival. He earned a doctorate after the war and taught forestry in Colorado and Maine. In 1965 he joined the University of Colorado's geography department.

WILLIAM EASTMAN had climbed approximately fifty peaks in the Cascade mountains of Oregon and Washington before enlisting in the Army in 1942. Eleven days after the Mt. Traver traverse on January 12, 1944 with the 10^th Recon and failing to reach Mt. Democrat and Cameron, Eastman returned with trooper R. A. Brown and made one day winter ski ascents of Mts. Lincoln, Cameron, Bross and Democrat on January 23, 1944.

RUSSELL McJURY (1916-2007) was a member of the Wy'east climbers of Mount Hood and the Mazamas before entering service with the Tenth Mountain Division. Between 1931 and 1941 he made 63 ascents by 12 different routes of Mount Hood. Among his climbs were first ascents of the North Face with future mountain trooper Bil Hackett in 1936 and of the Sandy Glacier Headwall in 1937 and the Eliot Glacier Headwall in 1938 with future mountain trooper Joe Leuthold.

While at Camp Hale he was the leader of a 10^th Recon troop of twenty-one men that made the first recorded winter ascent of Mt. Elbert on December 28, 1943, and of the thirty men on the first recorded winter ascent of Mt. Massive on December 30, 1943. He was also a leader on the January 1944 Mt. Traver traverse and the Trooper Traverse in February of 1944.

During the occupation of northern Italy by the Tenth Mountain Division at war's end, McJury was in command of a battalion climbing school. He was also able to climb the Matterhorn and Mount Blanc.

After the war he continued climbing in the major mountain ranges of the West with a first ascent of Mount Hood's Castle Crags in 1951 with two others. His last climb of Mount Hood was of the Zigzag Glacier Route in 1983 at the age of sixty-seven.

McJury spent a career in investment banking. He purchased and operated the Mount Hood Ski Bowl from 1951 to 1964. His final days of skiing came in 1995. Russell McJury died in California at the age of ninety on September 25, 2007.

MAURICE FINN wrote the report on the “tough reconnaissance assignment” on Mt. Bartlett and Mt. Traver. He was also one of the 30 men of the 10^th Recon to make the first recorded winter ascent of Mt. Massive on December 30, 1943. Earlier he had climbed the Mount of the Holy Cross in June of 1943 while at Camp Hale.

WILLIAM LOOMIS (1914-1973) was a graduate of Harvard and one of the four students of the Harvard Mountaineering Club to become part of the British-American Himalayan Expedition of 1936 to Nanda Devi, 25,643 on which Bill Tilman and Noel Odell were successful in reaching the summit. Loomis personally reached 23,800 feet on the expedition.

He spent the later part of the war with the OSS of “Wild Bill” Donovan behind Japanese lines in China.

His studies led him to become a medical researcher after the war where climbing was no longer a major part of his life. William Farnsworth Loomis died in 1973 at the age of fifty-nine.

DONALD BORTWICK was on the 10^th Recon expedition to the Ten Mile Range and of the thirty-four-man ascent of Quandary Peak in July of 1943 while at Camp Hale. After the war he returned to Aspen in 1954 as co-owner of the Mountain Shop.

NEIL CHRISTIE married and settled in Steamboat Springs where he was a member of the Ski Patrol.

ABBOTT PHILLIPS was on the 10^th Recon expedition to the Ten Mile Range and of the thirty-four-man ascent of Quandary Peak in July of 1943 while at Camp Hale. Upon his discharge he joined a ski team for ski competitions throughout the country.

ANDREWS BLACK (1922-2010) was born in New York state and grew up in Colorado Springs. He founded Denver Country Day School in 1953 now known as Kent Denver School.

He was a long-time summer resident of Aspen from 1961-1986 and served on the 10^th Mountain Division Hut Association's board in the early 1980's.

Andrews Black died in San Francisco, California.

MATTIAS MADSEN in addition to the Mt. Traver traverse climbed Mount Massive in July of 1943 while at Camp Hale.

CARL BRANDAUER (1924-2016) was born in Beijing, China and spent his childhood in Austria. His family moved to Colorado Springs in 1938 where he attended Fountain Valley School. Francis Froelicher was headmaster and Bob Ormes taught English and math. Both men were mountaineers who took Carl and other students on weekend climbing trips.

After the war he spent a year as a civilian instructor for the Mountain and Winter Warfare School at Fort Carson. In 1947 Carl entered Columbia University where he earned a PhD. in psychology.

He was a member of the American Alpine Club, Sierra Club and President of the Colorado Mountain Club in 1972.

I know little of the other troopers not mentioned other than they were of the Tenth Mountain Division at Camp Hale in 1944.