Founder Profile: Fritz Benedict 10th Mountain Division
Frederick “Fritz” Allen Benedict, 1914 – 1995, founded the 10th Mountain Division Hut in the early 1980’s. It has grown into the largest hut system in the USA. His vision, energy and experience were key ingredients in this remarkable story. It is in part a tale of a young man’s formative dreams coming after a lifetime of preparation.
[Louis Dawson has lived and studied the history of 10th Mountain Division and their website includes a history of the hut system and a separate history of the U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division (about which many books have been written). The following notes are intended to supplement Mr. Dawson’s history.]
Mr. Benedict served in the 10th Mountain Division of the U.S. Army and trained at Camp Hale near Leadville and fought in the Apennines in Italy in World War II. Like many soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division, he returned to Aspen after the war to pursue his love of skiing. He went on to become an influential planner and architect in the Aspen area, designing 200 buildings and contributing greatly to the tasteful development of some of Colorado’s premier ski communities and ski areas. In the 1980’s he turned his attention to the realization of his dream to develop a backcountry system of ski huts based on his experience of European hut systems and his love of the backcountry skiing he did while training in the area during the war.
Born and raised in Wisconsin, he attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison for undergraduate and Masters (MLA) degrees. He then went to work for (head gardener at Spring Green) and then study with Frank Lloyd Wright for three years.
As a graduate student in Landscape Architecture at Madison in 1938 his thesis “Hiking Trails in the Lower Wisconsin River Valley” develop a detailed plan and design principles for a 150 mile circular trail system encompassing 600 square miles of geologically rich land in the “driftless” region northwest of Madison, WI. The thesis includes a brief history of the hiking clubs and trail systems in the U.S. It discusses the “mushrooming” development of trails and clubs in the western and eastern in the U.S. and explores possible routes for a trial in the Midwest. Benedict clearly studied deeply the technical problems attendant to location and building of trails. His thesis provides detailed description of a route that begins and ends in Madison, travels north through Devils Lake State Park and the Baraboo range, then southeast to Spring Green, and turns east to end in Madison. He advocates making appreciation of the state’s geology a central feature of the trail and includes detailed descriptions of the geology (including hand-drawn stratigraphic maps). Based on a survey he conducted of numerous trail and outing clubs, Park and Forest Service offices, trail conferences, youth hostel groups, etc. he outlines the organization and administration of a trail system and suggests possible approaches to providing shelters at regular intervals. He identifies an abandoned hotel at Devils Lake which may be available for use as a youth hostel, and suggests building several connected experimental shelters to begin with. He states that a careful survey of the region would identify “….many vacant buildings such as school houses, cheese factories, and abandoned farm houses that could, perhaps, be converted into youth hostels or shelters”. His work was deeply influenced by the ongoing work of building the Appalachian Trail, the Long Trail, and trails in the Adirondacks. Interestingly he suggests that while it might be possible to use parts of this trail for cross country skiing, “in general this sport requires separate trails.” In reading the thesis I did not note any deep awareness of hut to hut hiking in Europe (beyond a reference to 2,200 youth hostels in Germany).
When Fritz finally got around to realizing his 1938 dream of a hut system it was in the Rocky Mountains.
He and a group of the founders of the 10th Mountain Division Hut System traveled to Europe to ski the Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt and gather ideas. When he proposed the first two huts the proposal was rejected by the USFS, which was skeptical of the viability of a hut system and concerned that it would be left with an unoccupied building on public land. Fritz appealed to his friends with deep pockets, including Robert McNamara. Together a group put up a personal bond to guarantee the full removal of the huts if they failed to meet the concerns of the USFS after five years. The Forest Service agreed and the rest is history. Fritz designed the first two huts: the McNamara Hut and Margy’s hut (named for Robert McNamara’s wife).
The 10th Mountain Division’s Fritz Benedict hut is named for the founder.
Fritz Benedict Hut – 10th Mountain Division
A more detailed historical sketch of Benedict, focusing on his extensive planning and architectural work is at: http://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/files/OAHP/Guides/Architects_benedictF.pdf
–Sam Demas, Editor, h2h