A South Carolina Driver Drove His Rental Car Up A Colorado Mountain Pass & Nearly Ruined It For Everyone

America is home to a number of chilling stories in which tourists disregarded advice from the locals and suffered grim consequences. Perhaps the most famous were the so-called "Death Valley Germans," a family of four who took an overseas vacation to the United States, and whose skeletal remains were thought to be found in 2009, 13 years after they tried to take a shortcut through the most uninhabitable area in the country in a rented Plymouth minivan.

This month, things took a less dire, but embarrassing, turn for the driver of a rented Kia. On October 1, Colorado residents began sharing a photo of an SUV with rental plates that had become stuck on an unpaved road in Telluride, a remote town in the Colorado Rockies. The road was shut down, but the story otherwise wouldn't normally have drawn much attention. However, the stranded vehicle was a Kia Telluride, which uses a 20-year-old engine design unsuited to the real-life Telluride's difficult terrain. The irony was enough to make the incident go semi-viral.

After confirming that the South Carolinian driver was unharmed, the mockery began. And it's not hard to see why. The road was Black Bear Pass, a jeep trail for serious off-roading enthusiasts driving high-clearance all-wheel-drive vehicles. Rental cars are explicitly prohibited. Moreover, the tourist had been warned by locals not to attempt the drive, according to the San Miguel County Sheriff. The pass was closed for a day while the driver and vehicle were rescued. "It's almost poetic how this embodies the meme of the hated Colorado tourist," wrote one Reddit user, aptly named u/jwed420.

Black Bear Pass is more suited to its namesake animal than it is to most vehicles, save for the most rugged 4x4s. The road is a rite of passage for those who know what to keep in mind on a 4x4 off-roading adventure, but it is not for the faint of heart. According to the late local celebrity C. W. McCall, a sign once posted at the top of the one-way rocky road read, "You don't have to be crazy to drive this road, but it helps."

Per the San Miguel County Sheriff, the out-of-state driver who ran his car into the rocks only made it past the first few switchbacks on the road before losing control of the vehicle. Not only was his vehicle unsuited to the terrain, but he had also been traveling the wrong way: he had been driving uphill on a one-way downhill road. Photos show the vehicle precariously perched on the edge of a steep drop-off, emphasizing how lucky the man was to walk away unscathed. 

A follow-up from the Sheriff confirmed that the driver was "issued a traffic citation for failure to obey a traffic control device (the one way sign)." As a result of the incident, Black Bear Pass was closed for nearly a day, along with the nearby Bridal Veil Road. Coloradans found the situation frustrating and funny in equal measure.

An unverified account from one local corroborates the San Miguel Sheriff's assertion that the stranded Kia Telluride driver didn't want to take advice from the locals. On Reddit, user u/FroyoEmbarrassed5618 described an encounter they had with a person believed to be the same tourist whose antics closed down Black Bear Pass.

"Shockingly I met this man this morning," the user wrote. They recounted that the man asked him for "Jeep stuff" to do in the area, although they didn't respond when the Redditor suggested some trails of moderate difficulty. He then reportedly walked off. "His wife walked up to me and told me she couldn't be in the car with him anymore and said she was asking him to drop her off at the airport to fly home to Rock Hill, South Carolina. They then walked right past the parked jeep and got in their WHITE KIA TELLURIDE [original emphasis preserved]."

Again, the anonymous account is not verified, though the poster insisted they were telling the truth. If true, the story would seem to add weight to the Sheriff's assertion that locals had warned the South Carolina tourist against driving on Black Bear Pass. If you're looking to go off-road without repeating this tourist's mistakes, check out our guide to overlanding.