Some roads inspire awe. Others make drivers grip the steering wheel. Colorado’s Million Dollar Highway manages to do both.
As US Highway 550 rises from the mountain town of Ouray, it gains more than 2,000 feet in only six miles along the Uncompahgre Gorge. In its narrowest sections, the road is just 23 feet across, with almost no shoulder and drops of more than 400 feet.
Some of the route’s most precarious stretches have no guardrails to soften the view. Drivers face solid rock on one side and open space 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 outcome can be devastating. Yet its dramatic scenery 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 visitor Adam Hynes was traveling along the highway when he noticed a silver Honda backing toward the edge of the road. Within moments, the vehicle had disappeared.
Hynes told the New Yorker that he sent a drone into the gorge and located the wreckage more than 300 feet below, lodged in the Uncompahgre River.
Ouray Mountain Rescue was summoned. Volunteers Jeff Skoloda and Tim Pasek used ropes to descend into the gorge, eventually reaching the crushed car. Then they heard a piercing cry. Inside, they found 11-year-old Rachelle alive.
The driver and Rachelle’s great-grandmother had died. The girl, badly injured and traumatized, had suffered serious damage to her pelvis and arm. She was hanging upside down in her seat belt while river water began entering the wreck.
Few American roads compare with Colorado’s Million Dollar Highway, a dramatic strip of pavement winding through the San Juan Mountains and gripping the walls of the Uncompahgre Gorge.
US Highway 550 gains more than 2,000 feet in six miles after leaving Ouray. Much of the two-lane route has almost no shoulder, narrowing to roughly 23 feet in places. Sheer drops exceed 400 feet, and guardrails are notably limited because they would complicate the clearing of avalanche debris.
For tourists, the drive is a bucket-list experience celebrated for its sweeping American West scenery. Locals know it demands caution: a moment of inattention, hidden ice or a misjudged curve can send a vehicle plunging hundreds of feet into the wilderness.
A helicopter could not safely reach the narrow gorge, leaving rescuers to devise a painstaking and dangerous rope operation to bring her out.
They rigged an intricate network across the gorge, using a Norwegian reeve and a Kootenay Highline System to shift Rachelle away from the wreck and guide her toward the highway.
The extraction took about three hours. Even after reaching safer ground, the most difficult task remained: hauling the injured child more than 300 vertical feet up to the road.
During the ascent, Rachelle asked if they might fall. Pasek reassured her that she was safe. She survived the crash and, after time in hospital, eventually recovered.
For the volunteer rescuers, missions like this are an unavoidable part of life along the Million Dollar Highway. The team has recovered more than 100 bodies, often witnessing scenes that linger long after the vehicles and debris have been removed.
There is no shortage of hazards along the highway, with several notorious spots where a routine drive can quickly turn dangerous.
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At Harley Corner, drivers can become absorbed by the spectacular views before realizing that the curve becomes sharply tighter. Tuffy’s Corner is also well known for collisions.
From 1950 through 1991, avalanches swept 58 vehicles into the terrain below Red Mountain Pass. That figure was more than five times higher than the total recorded on other Colorado mountain highways.
More than 60 named avalanche paths loom above the route, carrying ominous titles including 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.
Our News Outlet has reached out to Adam Hynes, Jeff Skoloda and Tim Pasek as well as Colorado’s department of Transportation for comment.
