When the Earthen Dam Let Go

You're rolling through the San Luis Valley right now, one of the highest alpine valleys in the world, surrounded by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to your east and the San Juans to your west. This is high desert country, sagebrush flats punctuated by irrigated farmland, with those fourteen-thousand-foot peaks watching over everything. Spring here is a study in contrasts: snow still clinging to the high country while the valley floor greens up with meltwater.

This valley's got some serious outdoor credentials. The Great Sand Dunes National Park is just north of you, where you can sandboard down seven-hundred-foot dunes then hike into alpine lakes in the same day. The Sangre de Cristos offer everything from casual day hikes to technical fourteener climbs like Blanca Peak and Little Bear. The Rio Grande cuts through here, offering Class Two and Three runs during runoff. There's dispersed camping all along Forest Road 250, and the hunting for elk in units 80 and 81 is legendary. The San Luis Lakes State Wildlife Area gives you fishing and birdwatching. And you're near the Stations of the Cross shrine above San Luis, which doubles as a pretty decent leg-burner of a hike with views that'll stop you cold.

But let me tell you about May 2003, when San Luis, the oldest town in Colorado, nearly washed away. They'd built this irrigation reservoir called Purcell Lake back in 1972, an earthen dam holding back millions of gallons. On May 28th, after heavy snowmelt, that dam failed catastrophically. A twenty-foot wall of water came roaring down Culebra Creek straight toward town.

The community had about thirty minutes warning. Families grabbed what they could and ran for high ground. The flood ripped through pastures, demolished bridges, destroyed homes, and tore out irrigation systems that families had depended on for generations. Somehow, miraculously, nobody died, but the damage was catastrophic, over ten million dollars in a community that could barely afford it.

What happened next is the real story. This tight-knit Hispanic community, descendants of Spanish land grant settlers, came together like you wouldn't believe. Neighbors rebuilt neighbors' homes. They reconstructed acequias, those traditional irrigation ditches, by hand. Federal help was slow, so they did it themselves.

Look around as you pass through. Every green field you see is a testament to people who refused to abandon the land their ancestors settled four hundred years ago.