Svea & Lawrence Elisha
During the "Quiet Years" when 10th Mountain Division soldiers came to Aspen from Camp Hale on maneuvers, Lawrence Elisha, proprietor of the Hotel Jerome, would play host to them by offering showers and beds for the night.
He would put 2 bottles of Segram's Seven Crown on the bar and say "Help yourselves."
Lawrence was a mountaineer too. He knew what the guys had achived in skiing over from Pando. He appreciated their enthusiasm for skiing in general and for his mountains in particular. He enjoyed being around their vitality and their innocence. And he knew that sooner or later they would surely be asked to put themselves in harm's way.
Elisha had a standing deal with the ski troops: A dollar a day got you a bed at the Jerome and a steak dinner. Scores of soldiers took him up on the offer whenever they could wrangle a weekend pass from Hale.
During the day on maneuvers, they'd stop for lunch—sandwiches provided by Mrs. Elisha, Laurences's wife, Svea—somewhere where they could see the naked, timberline cirques of the Elk Range—Highland, Castle, Mount Hayden—the ones that had so charmed André Roch.
—Excerpted from Climb to Conquer by Peter Shelton






