Colorado Snowsports Museum presenting more ‘Tales of the 10th.’ Flint Whitlock’s ‘Skiing Off To War’ program dovetails with Sandy Treat’s presentations

VAIL — History lives at the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Museum with a special presentation by an author and historian and 10th Mountain Division descendant.

Flint Whitlock’s one-hour presentation Saturday, Nov. 24, will look at the acclaimed mountain troops who trained at Camp Hale and Ski Cooper during World War II.

Titled “Skiing Off to War: The Saga of the 10th Mountain Division During World War II,” Whitlock’s program is a special extension of the museum’s popular presentations by 10th Mountain veteran Sandy Treat, the museum said.

The 10th Mountain Division is one of the U.S. Army’s most unique units. The 14,000-man division was filled with some of the world’s finest skiers, mountaineers, mule skinners and horsemen and was the last American division to see combat.

Once the 10th deployed to the mountains of Italy in the closing months of the war, the unit never lost a battle or gave up an inch of ground. After the war, many of the division’s veterans went on to create or expand ski resorts in Vail, Aspen, Arapahoe Basin and many other ski areas across the nation.

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A resident of Denver, Whitlock is a former U.S. Army officer, son of a 10th Mountain veteran and the co-author of “Soldiers on Skis: A Pictorial Memoir of the 10th Mountain Division.”

He is also a full-time military historian, lecturer, author of a dozen books and has led battlefield tours to Europe for National Geographic and the Smithsonian Institution.

Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 and rwyrick@vaildaily.com.