Hanging Flume, Historic mining flume in Dolores Canyon, Colorado.

The Hanging Flume is a historic wooden water channel fixed to the near-vertical walls of Dolores Canyon in western Colorado. Metal brackets driven into the rock hold the wooden sections above the river, so the channel runs for several miles with no ground beneath it.

The Montrose Placer Mining Company began building the flume in 1887 and finished it in 1891, using about 1.8 million board feet of Ponderosa pine held by iron rods. It carried water from a dam on the San Miguel River above Uravan to hydraulic gold mining on the Dolores. The mine closed after yielding only about $80,000, and the flume was abandoned after roughly three years of use.

The name Hanging Flume describes exactly what you see: a wooden channel that hangs on the cliff face with nothing below it. From the road, the surviving sections look almost weightless against the rock, which makes the structure hard to believe even when you are looking straight at it.

The surviving sections are visible from pullouts along Colorado Route 141 northwest of Uravan, and you can get a clear look without leaving your car. Binoculars help pick out the brackets in the rock face, and the contrast between the wood and stone tends to be sharpest in morning or late afternoon light.

The flume did work: when in use it carried about 80,000,000 gallons of water a day, and the mine ran for roughly three years before closing. Investors put over $1,000,000 into the mine and works but recovered only about $80,000. Afterwards local residents reused the timber, which is one reason so little wood survives on the cliff.