View of the Rifle Range and Chicago Ridge at Camp Hale

View of the Rifle Range and Chicago Ridge at Camp Hale in the Pando Valley. Camp Hale was the mountain training headquarters of the Tenth Mountain Division from 1943-1944. For traditional training, Camp Hale had three bayonet courses, three grenade courts, one rifle range, a machine gun range, a combat range and a gas chamber. In addition to the outdoor ranges, Camp Hale's dirt-floored, concrete-walled training halls each included a fifty-foot indoor .22-caliber rifle range for markmanship training during the winter months when conditions did not warrant sitting on the outdoor range. Finally, Camp Hale boasted a Mountain Obstacle Course of around ten thousand feet in elevation. This course combined the features of a regular obstacle course with added elements of advanced mountaineering. The geography of Camp Hale Military Reservation made all of this training possible. Ralph C. Meager, Camp Hale Reservation forester, commented in May 1943 that Camp Hale was "the only camp, post or station in the nation that embraces such a vast area of primitive wilderness and forest land." These differences set it apart from other military cantonments. No other cantonment constructed before or during World War II compared with the sophistication, planning and complexity of Camp Hale, making it one of the most respectable military engineering feats during World War II!

Source :
Book "World War II at Camp Hale: Blazing a New Trail in the Rockies" by David R. Witte
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