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Veterans Laura Albate and Cathy Drew say goodbye at the end of the last group meal for the weekend after a three-day retreat with Huts for Vets on Monday, June 21, 2021.
As a facilitator, Andersen’s presence is equal parts understated and magnetic, with wisps of grey hair sticking out from beneath his hat. Andersen is not a veteran — he protested the Vietnam War — but he seems both comfortable and humbled in the company of the participants. “It’s incommunicable,” he says of their time in the military. “Even for me to be in such close proximity with veterans, I only get a glimpse of what their experience is like.”
For his participants, that glimpse is enough. “You can’t pay us to open up to each other, or to ourselves,” says Natalie Solano, who served in the Marine Corps until last year, working as a correctional officer in a military prison. But something about Andersen’s approach — open, nonjudgmental, patient — made Solano feel unexpectedly safe. “The fact that we all open up to Paul, and then he makes us so comfortable opening up to each other? And that changes lives.”
Solano’s transition away from military service coincided with the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We isolate ourselves because it hurts to talk about things,” she says. In her case, the isolation was twofold. Leaving the military, only to enter lockdown at home, was debilitating. This is her second trip with Huts for Vets. “It’s an honor, the hugest honor,” she says. “I’ve been around the block, and this is like, the most valuable thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
Kelsey Brunner/For CPR News
Huts for Vets participants walk their belongings up to the off-grid campground off of East Sopris Road in Old Snowmass on Sunday, June 20, 2021.
A hidden history
Beloved by skiers and hikers, the 10th Mountain Division huts have a little known and often romanticized history.
In the years leading up to World War II, American military commanders heard news from Europe of armies suffering brutal defeats in Finland and Albania. The balance of entire wars had tipped because soldiers were unprepared for winter weather.
The United States Army took note. In 1942, the newly-created 10th Mountain Division moved to Camp Hale, near Leadville, to train for combat in the high mountains and extreme cold.
For many months, the troops hiked, skied, and climbed throughout the Sawatch Range in central Colorado. The Trooper Traverse, a harrowing 40-mile ski route from Leadville to Aspen, was first completed in 1944 on a training mission by soldiers carrying 75-pound packs.
Kelsey Brunner/For CPR News
Four of the six Hut for Vets women participants and a board member hike out of the Gates Hut after a three-day retreat outside of Meredith on Sunday, June 20, 2021.
The Division’s first troops arrived in Europe just six months before Germany surrendered. They pushed Hitler’s forces north across Italy, but at a significant cost. Of the Division’s 13,000 soldiers, more than 900 died and 3,000 more were wounded.
By the end of the war, the 10th Mountain Division suffered one of the highest casualty rates among all Allied forces.
Many of those same soldiers returned to the mountains of Colorado. At a time when the psychological trauma of war was rarely discussed openly, some former soldiers found comfort by returning to the same mountains they had recently called home.
In the 1980s, a group of these veterans and their families began building huts in memory of their fellow soldiers. The Harry Gates Hut is one of them.
Kelsey Brunner/For CPR News
The Huts for Vets group eat elk burgers and chat after wrapping up a three-day retreat at the Gates Hut on Sunday, June 20, 2021.
Closing the circle
After a closing discussion, the participants begin packing their bags for the 6-mile walk down the valley. One of the facilitators points me toward a bookshelf.
Memoirs written by veterans of the 10th Mountain Division sit together on a single shelf. Many of their authors were known personally to Andersen.
Relatively few members of the original Division are alive today, but the association they founded continues to manage the huts. They partner closely with Andersen to allow Huts for Vets to run roughly five trips each year at no cost.
Kelsey Brunner/For CPR News
Veterans Dan Glidden, center, and Natalie Solano share a moment at the Huts for Vets off-grid campground outside of Old Snowmass on Sunday, June 20, 2021.
For all involved, including the participants, the feeling of continuity energizes the work. Although these huts no longer serve the 10th Mountain Division as they once did, new generations of veterans are taking their place.
After the trip, Andersen looks out over the Roaring Fork Valley. The wildfire smoke that filled the sky the previous night has vanished with the shifting wind. After the last participant leaves for the airport, he reflects on his work and the 10th Mountain Division:
“Bringing veterans to huts that are dedicated to veterans — it completes their mission in a way that I don't think they ever thought that they could.”
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