Some roads inspire caution. Colorado’s Million Dollar Highway can make even confident drivers grip the wheel.
Near the mountain town of Ouray, US Highway 550 rises more than 2,000 feet in only six miles as it follows the Uncompahgre Gorge. In sections, the two-lane route is just 23 feet across, with almost no shoulder and vertical drops exceeding 400 feet.
On some of its most exposed sections, there are no guardrails to soften the view. Drivers face solid rock on one side and a steep void on the other, while more than 60 officially named avalanche paths cut across the highway.
The Million Dollar Highway is among the most avalanche-prone roads in the United States that remains open throughout the year. When accidents happen, the results can be catastrophic. Yet its dramatic setting continues to draw visitors, prompting the Ouray County coroner to describe the road as an “attractive nuisance,” according to the New Yorker.
Last year, Oregon tourist Adam Hynes was traveling along the route when he saw a silver Honda backing toward the edge of the highway. Within moments, the vehicle had vanished.
Hynes told the New Yorker that he sent a drone over the gorge and located the wreckage more than 300 feet below, lodged in the Uncompahgre River.
Ouray Mountain Rescue was summoned to the scene. Volunteers Jeff Skoloda and Tim Pasek descended by rope into the gorge and reached the crushed car. Then, amid the wreckage, they heard a piercing scream. Eleven-year-old Rachelle was still alive inside.
Her great-grandmother and the driver had died. Rachelle, badly injured and disoriented, had suffered serious damage to her pelvis and arm. She was suspended upside down by her seat belt as river water began flowing into the vehicle.
Colorado’s Million Dollar Highway is unlike almost any other road in America: a breathtaking strip of asphalt winding through the San Juan Mountains while clinging to the steep walls of the Uncompahgre Gorge.
US Highway 550 gains more than 2,000 feet in six miles after leaving Ouray. Much of the narrow route has little or no shoulder, and some stretches measure only 23 feet wide. Drops of over 400 feet lie beside the road, while guardrails are notably missing because they would make clearing avalanche debris more difficult.
The drive is a bucket-list experience for tourists, celebrated for its sweeping views of the American West. Locals, however, know it demands constant attention: a momentary distraction, icy pavement or a misjudged bend can send a vehicle plunging into the wilderness below.
Rescuing her would require extraordinary rope work and steady nerves. The gorge was so confined and hazardous that a helicopter could not safely reach the crash site.
The rescuers built an intricate rope network across the gorge, using systems known as a Norwegian reeve and a Kootenay Highline System. These allowed them to shift Rachelle away from the wreck and gradually move her toward the highway.
The technical rescue lasted roughly three hours. Even after Rachelle was freed from the car, the most demanding task remained: raising the injured girl more than 300 vertical feet to the road.
During the ascent, Rachelle asked if they might fall. Pasek reassured her that she was safe. She survived the ordeal and eventually recovered after treatment in hospital.
For the volunteer rescuers, scenes like this are an unfortunate part of working on the Million Dollar Highway. The team has recovered more than 100 bodies, confronting traumatic accidents that can linger in their memories long after the wreckage has been removed.
The highway offers no shortage of places where a driver can quickly lose control.
At Harley Corner, the surrounding scenery can draw a motorist’s eyes away from the road just as the bend becomes sharply tighter. Tuffy’s Corner is also notorious for collisions.
From 1950 through 1991, avalanches swept 58 vehicles from the road below Red Mountain Pass. That figure was more than five times higher than the total recorded on Colorado’s other mountain highways.
More than 60 named avalanche paths loom above the highway, including ominously memorable routes known as Riley Boy, Mother Cline and Slippery Jim.
Members of Ouray Mountain Rescue have recovered more than 100 bodies since the team was founded. Some were climbers and skiers, while others were motorists who simply failed to negotiate one of the highway’s treacherous bends
In 1992, an avalanche struck two plow drivers beyond a snowshed. Eddie Imel was killed after being buried for around 15 hours. His colleague, Danny Jaramillo, survived by digging himself out with a shovel.
More than 1,600 people subsequently petitioned for better protection but the solution never arrived on the scale many wanted.
A snowshed was eventually built, but it was only 180 feet long rather than the 1,200 feet originally proposed.
The contrast with countries such as Switzerland is striking. Avalanche expert Manuel Genswein has argued that roads facing comparable dangers there would typically have far more extensive protection, including tunnels, covered galleries, wider lanes and rockfall measures.
So why hasn’t the Million Dollar Highway been transformed? The answer is brutally simple: money and a lack of pressure to change it.
Colorado’s Department of Transportation estimates that widening even a mile of the highway enough for major safety improvements could cost between $30 million and $50 million. In terrain this remote and steep, every mile becomes a huge engineering project.
And officials say locals simply aren’t demanding one. Instead, drivers are expected to adapt to the mountain: check the weather, slow down, avoid the road when conditions are bad and respect the drop.
That philosophy has become deeply embedded in the highway itself. According to the New Yorker, CDOT officials say most crashes involve a single vehicle and driver error. Guardrails may make motorists feel safer, but there is often nowhere to put them without substantially widening the road.
More than 1,600 residents subsequently demanded better protection. But Colorado transportation officials have estimated that widening even a mile of the highway sufficiently to accommodate major safety improvements could cost between $30 million and $50 million. For many locals, that price is difficult to justify, and so the prevailing attitude is that drivers know they are entering dangerous terrain and must adapt to it
So the Million Dollar Highway remains caught in an uneasy compromise.
Everyone knows what is dangerous about it. The solutions are known, too. What is missing is the money and the appetite to fundamentally change the road.
For now, the rescuers remain ready for the next mistake, the next avalanche and the next car that disappears over the edge.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Adam Hynes, Jeff Skoloda and Tim Pasek as well as Colorado’s department of Transportation for comment.