The long version
Nine pieces of Vallecito worth more than a paragraph: the water, a flood, a fire, a mountain road, the valley's older history, and the pictures.
Most of this site answers a question you have today. These nine answer the ones you didn't know to ask — the record behind the lake you're looking at.
The record
History: 85 Years of Water
Every rise and fall since 1941, charted — the year the lake nearly filled, the year it nearly emptied, and why “full” now tops out at 96 percent.
Read the recordOctober 2025
The October 2025 Flood
The week the creeks came up: the hours as they happened, what was lost, the eleven rescues, and the neighbors still rebuilding.
Read the storyJune 2002
The Missionary Ridge Fire
Seventy-three thousand acres, forty-six homes, and the summer that changed how this valley thinks about fire — plus the Alan Wyatt memorial.
Read the story1873–1957
The Valley Under the Lake
Ranches, a wagon road and a post office that opened twice — what the record shows about the ground under the water, and what it doesn’t.
Read the storyDeep time
The Flood Nobody Saw
Forty-five-ton boulders sit in gravel pits below Bayfield, twenty-five miles from the only rock they could have come from. What put them there, and what would settle it.
Read the storyThe road up
Middle Mountain
The forest road above the east shore: what it takes to drive it, the ATV routes off it, and the ghost town that isn't in this county.
Take the roadThe gold camp
Tuckerville
The Cave Basin camp that never paid: a 1913 strike on the Dowell property, a promoter still selling it the year it emptied, a lifetime of gold that would fit in a coffee can — and the mineral it gave the world instead.
Walk to the meadowUte history
Weaselskin
A creek above the lake and a bridge on the Animas carry his name. The documented Southern Ute record — an adobe house, a horseman at the 1902 fair — kept honestly apart from the settler gold legend.
Read the recordPictures
Gallery
The lake, the dam, the aspens and the archives — freely licensed photographs of Vallecito, credited and dated.
See the photosAlso worth your time: the Tour of Carvings, the trail guide, and Respect Vallecito — the case for treating this place well.