Dick Howe on the 10th Mountain Division, and Then Some…

Talk about meeting an inspirational person! I was out surfing this past weekend with my friend Pat Howe who’s one of those stealthy “silent but deadly” kind of guys who moves swiftly and efficiently through the backcountry, the water, and life in general. He’s a competent outdoors person and a man of few and quiet words. On this trip he let it slip that his dad had been in the 10th Mountain Division which is a pretty big deal if you like to ski and have any interest in the history of the sport. The good news was that we planned to stay with Pat’s parents in Sequim, WA, for a night so I took the opportunity to interview his father, Dick Howe. I ended up with over an hour of footage listening to stories about the 10th Mountain Division, his first avalanche at Tuckerman’s Ravine, building the first lift towers at A-Basin, skiing Alta and Aspen in the early 50′s, and where the best women skiers could be found (Salt Lake). He also told some tales about dynamite work going awry and living all over the world during his career. I’m going to turn this into a multi-part series because it’s going to take some time to edit the footage. Until then, here’s the intro video: [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10GIBmjG2oI']