{"id":18185,"date":"2019-09-04T10:11:27","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T16:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=59876"},"modified":"2019-09-04T10:11:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T16:11:27","slug":"sandy-treat-a-vail-icon-and-10th-mountain-division-vet-dies-at-96","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/sandy-treat-a-vail-icon-and-10th-mountain-division-vet-dies-at-96\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandy Treat, a Vail icon and 10th Mountain Division vet, dies at 96"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Sandy Treat was one of the Rocky Mountain Masters Series most accomplished racers after he moved to Vail.<\/strong>
Colorado Snowsports Museum\/Special to the Vail Daily<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Editor\u2019s note: The Vail Daily has been privileged to write about Sandy Treat many times. His quotes in this tribute are pulled from some of those stories.<\/em><\/p>\n

VAIL \u2014 After training in Camp Hale and fighting through northern Italy during World War II with the famed 10th Mountain Division, Vail icon Sandy Treat spent the rest of his life smiling.<\/p>\n

Treat\u2019s run ended at 96 on Sunday, but his smile lives on.<\/p>\n

Among his many contributions to the Vail community, Treat hosted the Colorado Snowsports Museum\u2019s Tales of the 10th Mountain Division, a weekly series of talks by members of the famed division. The standing-room-only crowds almost always greeted Treat with a hero\u2019s welcome. He deserved it, as do thousands of others.<\/p>\n

For every Colorado Snowsports Museum presentation, Treat worked his way through the crowd of well-wishers and fans. He took a seat at the front of the room, cleared his throat and began to tell stories.<\/p>\n

He loved to entertain questions. His presentations sometimes shifted, depending on what he was asked.<\/p>\n

Someone always asked, \u201cWere you scared when you went to war?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure!\u201d came Treat\u2019s reply. \u201cWhen someone next to me was shot, I was damned scared!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then that smile returned to his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s make this a happy thing. I\u2019ve seen a lot of unhappy things, lots of terrible things,\u201d Treat told the crowd.<\/p>\n

Sandy the second<\/h3>\n

Treat was raised on a farm outside New York City by his mother, Jane, and father, the original Sandy Treat. His father graduated from New York Military Academy and fought in World War I. He taught his son to shoot and ski.<\/p>\n

Sandy Sr. skied behind his thrill-seeking son controlling Sandy Jr.\u2019s speed with a rope, keeping him from obeying the laws of gravity and inertia with missionary zeal. About halfway down, young Sandy shouted, \u201cOK, Dad, let me go!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s what you do with children \u2014 you let them go. And, oh, the places Treat went.<\/p>\n

The Depression hammered Treat\u2019s family, as it did so many. His father\u2019s businesses cratered and the family lost almost everything except each other. Young Sandy worked delivering The New York Times and New York Tribune to help the family.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the family rebuilt the businesses and sent a young Sandy Treat Jr. to the prestigious Deerfield Academy, where he excelled in both academics and athletics \u2014 he was captain of the ski team and earned a Major League Baseball tryout.<\/p>\n

He headed for Dartmouth College and was a member of the ski team that won a national championship. But he wasn\u2019t there long. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1942. His mother wrote to him every day he was in the service.<\/p>\n

The legendary Minnie Dole, who founded the 10th Mountain Division, the National Ski Patrol and so much more, asked Treat about his qualifications for the 10th. Treat told him, \u201cI can ski fast and for a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camp Hale tales<\/h2>\n

Treat boarded a train in New York with 15 other guys and headed west to Camp Hale. Hundreds were already there. Thousands would follow. Between 1942 and 1945, 15,000 men trained in Camp Hale, located between Leadville and Red Cliff.<\/p>\n

Calisthenics included push-ups in the snow without gloves, \u201cto toughen them up,\u201d Treat said. The Germans were well trained and battle-hardened.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta learn to deal with tough stuff,\u201d Treat said. \u201cWe were a bunch of college guys with no experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t all misery. One day an officer walked up to him and barked, \u201cAre you Sandy Treat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes sir,\u201d Treat replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want you to climb up in that clump of trees so the photographer can take a picture,\u201d the officer ordered.<\/p>\n

So he did, except the photographer told him to take off his clothes for the picture.<\/p>\n

Treat may or may not remember the picture, but he remembered it was so cold that the photographer fumbled around and dropped his camera. Sandy also remembered it took a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019m gonna die before I even get started,\u2019\u201d Treat said.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t die. He survived Camp Hale, the Battle of Riva Ridge and much more.<\/p>\n

Mostly, though, the soldiers training at Camp Hale understood they were preparing to kill or be killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFun? There was no fun. We were angry! I mean really angry! Pearl Harbor had happened. We couldn\u2019t wait to go out and fight the enemy!\u201d Treat told Karolina Blodgett.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ironically, the skiing soldiers did not ski during combat in Europe, Treat said. It was spring when they arrived in Italy and a few guys skied on a patrol. Their skis made such a clatter on the rocks that it gave away their position.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t ski in combat. We didn\u2019t even have our skis in Europe,\u201d Treat said.<\/p>\n

\u2018You must come to Wail!\u2019<\/h3>\n

Another Vail icon, Pepi Gramshammer, recruited Treat to Vail with a simple admonition: \u201cYou must come to Wail! That\u2019s the place!\u201d Gramshammer said in his distinctive Austrian accent. Vail founder Pete Seibert told Treat about launching the Country Club of the Rockies, knowing he was an avid golfer. So, in 1986 after a successful business career, Treat did.<\/p>\n

Even before returning to Colorado, Treat wrote to then-Vail Mayor Paul Johnston asking how he could help the community. Johnston was an absolute fountain of suggestions.<\/p>\n

Treat had a big effect on the small town.<\/p>\n

He served on several nonprofit boards, bringing his business acumen with him and pulling a couple of local operations back from financial ruin.<\/p>\n

In 1989, the World Alpine Ski Championships returned to the United States for the first time since 1952. Treat strapped on his volunteer coat and, along with hundreds of others, stepped up. He worked with Sarge Brown, mountain operations department manager. It also helped assuage some European sensibilities that Treat was a World Cup expert.<\/p>\n

Treat first started Masters ski racing near his home in Toronto. After moving to Vail, he dominated the men\u2019s Masters division of the Rocky Mountain region well into his 80s. His racing days ended with a horrific crash in 2009 that cost him the sight in one eye.<\/p>\n

He was skiing again in less than a year, this time with Foresight Ski Guides, a service for visually impaired and blind skiers, and the Vail Veterans Program that brings military personnel injured in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families to Vail for ski and golf vacations.<\/p>\n

He won the Inaugural Heart of the Community Award, and in 2010 was inducted into the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame, a class that included local legends Dr. Jack Eck and Dr. Richard Steadman.<\/p>\n

Sandy outlived three wives and one of his children. He lived to see Sandy Treat V born nine months ago.<\/p>\n

During one of last summer\u2019s Tales of the 10th presentations, he smiled at a standing-room-only crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a lovely life,\u201d he told them.<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sandy Treat was one of the Rocky Mountain Masters Series most accomplished racers after he moved to Vail.Colorado Snowsports Museum\/Special to the Vail Daily Editor\u2019s note: The Vail Daily has been privileged to write about Sandy Treat many times. His quotes in this tribute are pulled from some of those stories. VAIL \u2014 After training […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 03:31:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}