Photo: Camp Hale construction in 1942 - Courtesy Denver Public Library Special Collections.

(Colorado News Connection) President Joe Biden was in Colorado Wednesday to designate the Camp Hale-Continental Divide area north of Leadville as a national monument. 

Soldiers from Camp Hale are credited with helping turn the tide against fascism in Europe during World War II. 

Bradley Noone is a Tenth Mountain Division veteran and explained that the Army recruited the nation's top mountaineering and ski athletes, and brought them to the Rocky Mountains to learn how to be soldiers.

"The 10th Mountain trained at Camp Hale," said Noone, "and then were deployed to Italy and were able to take a number of key points in the landscape that the Germans thought were unclimbable, unconquerable - until they met the 10th Mountain Division."

Soldiers returning from combat helped found Colorado's world-renowned ski industry, putting the state on a path to becoming a leader in harnessing the economic power of the outdoor recreation economy. 

According to a recent poll, 86 percent of Coloradans across party lines support the president designating new national monuments to protect public lands from future development, but some Republicans have called the move a land grab.

In 2020, outdoor recreation contributed nearly $10 billion to Colorado's economy, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. 

Nancy Kramer - president of the Tenth Mountain Division Foundation - called the designation a big win for gateway towns and businesses, and believes it will bring even more visitors to the area.

"These cultural tourists, they come, they stay, they explore," said Kramer. "They spend more by staying longer, and engaging with the communities more. So it has a very important economic impact."

Noone said after combat tours in Afghanistan, spending time in Colorado's wild spaces probably saved his life. 

He said visiting the pristine areas surrounding Camp Hale also helps him reconnect with the lands he signed up to protect.

"Public lands act as my church, they act as my therapist, my playground, my gym," said Noone, "It gives me a chance to go out and see some really peaceful, quiet, tranquil, serene places that I can go - and other veterans can go - to heal."

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.