The rusted Ford in Green Mountain Reservoir

It was during the first snow of the season when Dennis Carpenter drove his brother’s truck from Green Mountain Dam to Kremmling in 1968. 

But he was woefully unprepared for the icy roads.

On a typical drive from his neighborhood below Green Mountain Dam to his flying business in Kremmling, Dennis would take his ’65 Chevy Impala. Dennis can’t remember why the Impala was unavailable that day — it’s possible his brother Jerry was repairing it — but he had no other choice but to drive his brother’s pickup truck for the day.

He brought the necessities: cowboy boots, a few shirts, receivables that he planned on mailing, and a briefcase that contained his flight computer, plotting and maps. 

Dennis had spent most of his early life living near Green Mountain Reservoir and built a long career in aviation. He received his private license in Rangely and later his commercial license and instructor certificate at Reno Stead Airport in the late 1960s. He was instrumental in creating four different aviation businesses from the late 60s through the late 80s. Today, he’s retired, living in Kremmling with his wife, Francine.

Support Local Journalism

Donate

Dennis drove his brother’s white Ford F-100 up the steep hill from Dam Camp, across Green Mountain Dam and down Heeney Rd — a route that all the “Dam kids” used when commuting to Kremmling.

As Dennis approached mile marker 9, the receivables started to slip off the Ford’s bench seat. He reached across the cab of the truck to catch them, and when he looked up, he was “headed for the guardrail.”

The truck was not yet ready for snow and ice: it had two-wheel drive and was still fitted with summer tires. When Dennis reached for the receivables, the truck slipped on the icy road. Dennis tried to jerk the steering wheel to avoid the cable guardrail, but it was already too late. 

“[The guardrail] must have gone through the bumper because it flipped me,” Dennis said in an interview with Ski-Hi News.

The truck started rolling uncontrollably, parallel to Heeney Road. Dennis counted five rolls — his experience in aviation trained him to count “rolls and loops,” he said.

When the Ford landed, it hung over the edge of Heeney Road like a scene from a Hollywood film. On one side, Heeney Road; on the other, a 100-ft drop down a rocky cliff into Green Mountain Reservoir. Dennis’s instincts kicked in. He unbuckled his seatbelt, slid himself across the bench seat, and opened the passenger-side door.

Moments before Dennis could leap out of the truck to safety, the Ford plummeted down the cliff. Dennis flung back across the seat and wrapped his arms around the steering column, hoping to stabilize himself.

“Kerpow, Kerpow, then Kerpuuuuuuuuush,” Dennis exclaimed, recalling the sounds the truck made as it hit the bank twice on its descent, then crashing into the water, tail first.

As if Dennis were exiting one of the dozens of Cherokee 140 airplanes he flew during his career, he cranked down the right-side window and climbed out. He swam to shore and looked back at the truck — for a moment, it seemed like the Ford was floating.

Watching from the bank of the reservoir, Dennis realized he needed his flight computer and his maps for work. He swam back to the Ford, reached into the passenger-side window again, and grabbed the briefcase. Water began trickling into the truck from the windows — the truck was sinking.

“I thought, ‘I don’t think I need to be here,” he said.

Dennis swam back to the edges of Green Mountain Reservoir to get away from the drowning vehicle, and began his ascent up the cliff toward Heeney Road. As he climbed, the Ford plunged deeper and deeper into Green Mountain Reservoir, never to be seen again…

…until a few weeks ago, when he received a message from a fellow Kremmling Resident.

The Ford resurfaces

Dennis sustained little to no injury from the crash, except for a large bruise to the bicep while clutching the steering column on his descent to Green Mountain Reservoir.

Dennis said he doesn’t quite remember how his family reacted when he admitted that the Ford F-100 was now at the bottom of the reservoir. However, he remembers being teased by friends and family for years to come.

‘Well, my pickup’s in the lake,’ Dennis’s brother would retort whenever Dennis did something wrong.

‘Did you get your pickup yet?’ Dennis’s friend Grady Culbreath would ask him. Culbreath’s daughter, Lisa, contacted Sky-Hi News about the resurfaced Ford.

As jokes came Dennis’s way, he was sure the old Ford would stay put at the bottom of the reservoir. But a few weeks ago, Dennis received a peculiar message from a Kremmling resident: a photo of an old rusted vehicle that had the same shape as Dennis’s brother’s Ford F-100.

“I asked him where [the truck was] at, and he said, ‘I don’t know! Somebody sent me the picture.”

The pickup is just one of the many objects found in Green Mountain Reservoir as extreme drought conditions continue to lower its water levels. Today, water levels are down almost 100 feet, causing an old U-Haul trailer, an ATV, a snowmobile and other debris to resurface.

When the truck plummeted to the depths of Green Mountain Reservoir, it sank nose-up. Today, the truck is fully exposed, faces nose down, and is visible at mile marker 9 on Heeney Road.

Dennis has visited the viewing point on four separate occasions. His first sight of the truck made him realize how serious the accident was, he said.

“When we were out there at first, it really struck me that, ‘Hey, dude, you could be dead,'” Dennis said, “But the fact that the Lord was with me is what I believe now. And I have [believed so] for some time.”

The future of the Ford — what’s next?

Dennis has received many messages about the truck since it became visible, but the most notable was from the Summit County Sheriff’s Office. A detective told Dennis that he used 230 feet of rope to descend the cliff to investigate the truck. 

The detective was looking for potential evidence that could help investigators assess whether the truck was connected to any open missing-person cases from that time period, Dennis said.

Although the Summit County Sheriff’s Office was unable to confirm which cases were being investigated in relation to the truck, Sergeant Mike Schilling said the investigation was not abnormal. 

“Anytime a vehicle is uncovered in a body of water, a detective is sent to observe it to see if it’s tied to [any open case],” Schilling said. The Sheriff’s office said the truck was not found to be connected to any of their open cases.

The old Ford — now rusted and camouflaged against the cliffside — will not be visible from mile marker 9 for much longer. Mark Eatherton, Chair of the Lower Blue Fire Protection District in Heeney, is leading efforts to remove the truck.

Lower Blue Fire Protection is working with Mountain Rescue’s Charlie Stubblefield, according to Eatherton in an email to Sky-Hi News. Stubblefield has agreed to pull the truck out of the reservoir and drop it off at the SCRAP facility near Lake Dillon.

“Charlie estimates that the truck is almost 300 feet away from Heeney Road, and will require his largest town truck to extract it,” Eatherton said in the email.

Other old vehicles and debris have been successfully removed from Green Mountain Reservoir, including an ATV and a snowmobile, according to Summit Daily. Green Mountain Reservoir is part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project that supplies drinking water to the Front Range. The lower water levels provide a unique opportunity to clean up the reservoir, Morris said in an interview with 9News.

Dennis said that once the truck is recovered from the reservoir, he would like to see it up close.

“I would like to have the license plate and the tools underneath the front seat,” he added. The chrome tools were his brothers’ and might still be functional after all of this time, he said.