In the recently published book, “Climb To Conquer,” on the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, author Peter Shelton writes a fascinating story of the creation of the “ski troops,” the actions they participated in during World War II and the post-war contributions the veterans made to outdoor recreation. It’s a detailed look at how a few citizen athletes, with an interest in skiing and service to their country, convinced the Army of their own worth as soldiers.

No other unit that entered the war suffered higher casualties, such was the fierceness of the fighting and the difficulty of the terrain. The names of the veterans who returned home from the Italian Alps reads like a who’s who of outdoor adventure sports and recreation. For that reason alone, this book deserves a spot on any outdoor enthusiast’s shelf.

Shelton’s book begins with the meeting of four skiers in a Vermont lodge in February of 1940. One was the president of the National Ski Association, Robert Langley of Boston. Robert Livermore was a U.S. Olympic down hill skier who raced in the 1936 games. Alex Bright, the dean of American downhillers was there and one man, Charles Minot “Minnie” Dole, who had just created the National Ski Patrol System. None was a soldier.

They had talked about the Finnish Army’s tenacious fight against overwhelming odds with the Russian Army the winter before. The Finns had fought on skis and although defeated, they had cost the Soviet army dearly, due to the Finns familiarity with mountain conditions. The U.S. had not entered the war yet and if England fell and Canada with it, they wondered how we would be able to protect our northern mountainous border from a potential German enemy. Thus, “Minnie’s ski troops” were created.

The author lets no detail go unnoticed in this book. He writes in sparse sentences about the resistance Dole received from the Army brass over creating an elite corps of light infantry who would fight and patrol on skis.

“The Army, in turn, resisted at first, the very idea of specialized troops. This wasn’t the Army way, and considering the limited money and time, there were more pressing matters, namely to build regular infantry divisions from scratch. Dole persisted.”

Eventually, through that persistence, the 10th Mountain Division was created. Trained by European champion skiers, now refugees, on Mount Rainier in the Cascade range of Washington, the soldiers enlisted from everywhere that had snow. They came from Vermont, New Hampshire, Michigan, Idaho, Montana and Maine. After training as an experimental force, while still not a permanent division, at Paradise Lodge on Rainier, the Army created a new training facility at Camp Hale, Colo. The 87th Regiment could become a permanent corps.

In Colorado, the troops learned snow cave construction, after which they threw away the Army’s four-man pyramid tents, which caused snow inside from accumulating frost on the inside walls. They learned tummy warming, a technique for warming cold toes on your tent mate’s stomach. They became trained as a cohesive cold weather fighting force, capable of carrying huge loads of 90 pounds and more on pack boards. They developed specialized clothing and sleeping bags. By 1944, it came time for battle. Or so the soldiers thought. As the author puts it, “The fact was, the Army had no mission for the mountain troops.” One soldier in the outfit predicted (wrongly, it turned out): “This outfit will never go to war.”

Instead, the Army, to fill the ranks, since they were running out of recruits who knew how to ski, transferred the whole division from Colorado to Camp Swift in Texas, the low point in the division’s story. They had been training in the 13,000 foot passes of Colorado and now it was June in Texas. Morale plummeted. The Army had to stop transfers out of the division, the men were leaving so fast.

According to one veteran of the division, 1st Lt. (retired), 86th & 85th Regiments, Howard “Skip” Spencer, of Ellsworth, “When the guys went AWOL, instead of going home, they went to Colorado to ski.” He trained at Camp Hale after joining in February 1943 at age 19, “Because my eyes weren’t good enough for the Air Force. I grew up skiing and a good friend from Vermont had joined first and told me about it,” he recalled recently. His service in the unit mirrored the division’s early years.

Finally, the troops get their chance to fight. They are the last division to enter the war and go ashore in Italy to attack what the German’s had deemed an un-climbable cliff of 1,500 feet. They climbed the cliff, called Riva Ridge, in February, at night, without headlamps. After catching the Germans by surprise the battle had begun. The personal stories of the ensuing battle, the courage of the troops and the descriptions of the terrible fighting from Riva Ridge to the Po River valley make this section of the story particularly gripping.

In the 114 days that followed no unit that had entered the war earlier suffered higher casualties. But the ski troops had, by themselves, routed five German divisions and helped cause the complete collapse of the German 14th Army.

The war ended May 8, 1945, but the contributions that the veterans made after the war were perhaps their greatest legacy. They came home to advance their outdoor pursuits to a now recreation-minded American public. Some of the greatest names in outdoor sports were soldiers in the 10th. Among them, Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, co-founders of the shoe and apparel giant, Nike. The legendary Paul Petzoldt, the founder of the National Outdoor Leadership School, who still climbed the Tetons into his 80s was a member of the 10th. David Brower, executive director of the Sierra Club was one of the most renowned having been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. The founders of K2 skis were veterans as well as the makers of the first safety release bindings and ski lift manufacturers.

They accomplished even more. They founded ski areas that included Vail, Aspen and Arapahoe Basin in Colorado, Mount Bachelor in Oregon, Snow Valley in California and Sugarbush in Vermont among others. All told, some 62 ski areas were either managed by or had ski schools directed by 10th alumni. Innovations in equipment created for the troops found their way to the general public such as Vibram soles for boots, nylon climbing rope and metal edges for skis.

The remarkable feats of these ordinary soldiers should never go unrecognized by anyone who participates in the outdoor activities we enjoy today. As Peter Shelton writes, “In peacetime, mountain risks may include collapsing cornices, snow avalanches, falling rock, or the risk of slipping and tumbling. But soldiers must also face the weapons of war … And something the mountaineer doesn’t have to deal with – a clever, conscious enemy.”

“Skip” Spencer, a 10th veteran from Ellsworth, is active in the alumni association of the division and until a couple of winters ago, skied downhill. He still has his Army issue white, laminated hickory, interrupted steel edged, eight-foot skis. On occasion they’re displayed crossed in an “X” behind the division insignia over his garage. Being in the division, he said, “gave me a tremendous amount of confidence that we could overcome any obstacle and achieve an objective.”