In 1968, during the first snow of the season, a young pilot borrowed his brother's white Ford F-100 for the drive along Heeney Road to Kremmling, Colorado. The truck had two-wheel drive and summer tires. Near mile marker 9, some papers started sliding off the bench seat. He reached across to catch them, and when he looked up he was headed for the guardrail.
The truck flipped, rolled five times and came to rest hanging over the edge of the road. Below it was a 100-foot drop into Green Mountain Reservoir. Before he could get out, the truck went over. It hit the bank twice and landed in the water tail first. He cranked down the window, climbed out and swam to shore. Then he swam back for his briefcase. The truck sank, and for 58 years nobody saw it again.
Back in View
This fall, a Kremmling resident sent him a photo of a rusted pickup with a familiar shape. Vail Daily, carrying a story from Sky-Hi News, reported that extreme drought has dropped Green Mountain Reservoir almost 100 feet. An old U-Haul trailer, an ATV, a snowmobile and other debris have come back into view along with the Ford.
The truck went down nose up. It now sits fully exposed and nose down on the side of the reservoir, visible from mile marker 9.
What Happens When a Vehicle Turns Up
A Summit County Sheriff's Office detective used 230 feet of rope to get down the cliff and look at it. A sergeant explained that any time a vehicle is uncovered in a body of water, a detective goes out to see whether it is tied to an open case. This one was not.
Getting it out is another job entirely. The chair of the Lower Blue Fire Protection District in Heeney is leading the effort, working with a member of Mountain Rescue who has agreed to pull the truck out and take it to the SCRAP facility near Lake Dillon. The truck sits almost 300 feet from Heeney Road, and the job will take his largest tow truck. Crews have already removed the ATV and the snowmobile.
Green Mountain Reservoir is part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, which supplies drinking water to the Front Range.
Fifty-Eight Years Underwater
The striking part of this story is not that a truck went into a reservoir. It is that it stayed there, in a drinking water supply, for more than half a century, and it took a historic drought for anyone to see it.
That is how it usually goes. A vehicle carries a fuel tank, engine oil, ethylene glycol and a lead acid battery into the water with it. Under the Clean Water Act, a discharge that leaves a visible sheen on the water is reportable, and the U.S. Geological Survey has tracked petroleum contamination persisting in groundwater for decades at its research site near Bemidji, Minnesota. Most lakes never drop 100 feet. The vehicles in them stay down.
The Same Is True in Utah
Our Utah Waterways Submerged Debris Atlas documents an estimated 499 submerged items across 20 Utah lakes, including 56 vehicles and 103 vessels that are individually confirmed.
Fathom Restoration is a disabled-veteran-led Utah 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and today our volunteer divers carry trash out of Utah's lakes and reservoirs by hand. On October 10, four of our divers worked Haws Point at Strawberry Reservoir and came up with about 35 pounds of trash by our estimate, including three folding chairs, an umbrella and a kite. On two September crew dives at Deer Creek Reservoir, we brought up about 58 pounds more.
The vehicles in the Atlas will take much more than hands. We are working to start recovering submerged vehicles, and we are doing it in order: insurance, permits and commercial dive certification first.
Not Waiting for a Drought
The driver says that once the Ford is out, he would like the license plate and the tools under the front seat. After 58 years in the water, the plan is to haul it back up the cliff. In Utah, we would rather not wait for the water to drop before we deal with what is under it.
Fathom Restoration is a disabled-veteran-led Utah 501(c)(3) nonprofit running volunteer dive cleanups on Utah's lakes and waterways and building toward the recovery of submerged vehicles and vessels. Donate or volunteer at fathomrestoration.org.
Source: https://www.vaildaily.com/news/the-rusted-ford-in-green-mountain-reservoir/
