After a significant rockfall at Boulder Falls last November, the City of Boulder is weighing whether to relocate the viewing area farther from the falls or permanently close trail access.
Boulder Falls, located 11 miles up Boulder Canyon Drive, features a short hike to a waterfall and access to Plotinus Wall, a popular climbing area. In 2023, the city recorded 261,000 visits to the site. However, access has been closed indefinitely since the November rockslide, which sent large rocks down the western slope and damaged key infrastructure. Consultants recently concluded the site carries a high risk of ongoing, potentially catastrophic rockfall events that could cause serious injuries or fatalities.
“Given this report, we cannot put the trail back in its previous alignment,” Hilary Dees, a senior manager of visitor infrastructure for the city, told the Open Space Board of Trustees in an August meeting. “Visitation at Boulder Falls will look different than what the public has grown used to.”
The city is soliciting geotechnical analysis for two different potential locations for viewing platforms for the falls. One would be located where climbing access currently splits from the trail, and the other would be “very close to the road,” which would make the trail — already only 0.1 miles long — “quite short.” Consultants will present their preferred location in early 2026. If both locations are deemed inadequate, “the third option is permanent closure,” Dees told the board.
A long history of issues
Boulder Falls is popular with tourists, locals and climbers, and Dees said that rangers are constantly asked when the site will reopen.
“It is one of the best places to take people who are visiting,” she said. “It’s so easy to get to, the payoff is so nice, and I think that’s one of the reasons it’s so popular. So we recognize the importance of this.”
The city has been managing rockfall at Boulder Falls since 1993 with infrastructure like erosion netting and gabion baskets — barriers made of rocks in wired cages designed to mitigate erosion and catch rockslides. But Dees said the area cannot be made fully safe, and despite past attempts to manage risk, it has often faced major closures.
“In recent history, it’s been closed almost as much as it’s been opened,” she said. Boulder’s 2009 flash flood closed Boulder Falls for years, and 2018 construction to reopen the trail cost $1.23 million. The November 2024 rockfall that has kept the trail closed for the past year damaged the trail and several gabion baskets. In one case, the force of the rockfall was so severe a gabion basket didn’t just topple — a common failure — but “exploded open,” spilling tons of stone onto the trail. Dees also described large stones “bouncing” up to 17 feet in the air, down the slope, across the creek and up the opposite slope.
“Bouncing is not usually a verb I use for those big boulders, but there was so much velocity with these stones that they literally went up the other side of the creek,” she said. “It’s really impressive, but I don’t love that we had a trail at the bottom of it.”
Further mitigation could include a combination of drilling bolts into the rock face, adding anchored mesh, targeted scaling of unstable rock and installing rockfall fences and mesh barriers, all expensive and complex to implement.
“Every single way that we can mitigate will require the use of helicopters and specialty contractors,” Dees said. She estimated the cost of further mitigation at around $7 million.
That’s “an extremely high number for quite a short trail,” she added, suggesting it may not be worth it given the city’s other needs. Any stabilization measures would also require ongoing maintenance or replacement.
Climbers disobeying the closure
While the area remains closed, some people are ignoring the restrictions. In June, OSMP installed a trail camera for six weeks and counted over 90 people crossing into the Boulder Falls trail.
OSMP Board of Trustees member Brady Robinson asked staff whether they’re taking steps to enforce the closure, particularly among climbers.
Dees said the city has updated Mountain Project with closure information, and added signage and a chain-link fence. But Robinson, a climber himself, said people have been jumping the fence to reach Plotinus Wall.
“It’s a really sweet place to go climbing,” he said. For climbers who often travel on dangerous slopes, “this is a classic [case of] likelihood versus consequence. The likelihood on any given day for something catastrophic to happen is very low, and so for an individual climber, they’re not too worried about it.”
“But as managers, we have to be,” he added. “Because people are going to be there basically all the time. And the next time a big rock comes down, it’s pretty likely it’s gonna squish somebody.”
In response, Dees urged the climbing community to honor the closure, not just for their own safety, but also for the safety of rescue teams that may need to enter the area if someone is injured. Climbers can still access Plotinus Wall by hiking in from the Upper Dream Canyon climbing area, off Sugarloaf Road.
Close the Trail Permanently.
Save $8 million.
Arrest Trespassers.
Simple.
Keep it closed. The number of cars who park in the parking area, which is generally full, then along the road, is a danger to drivers and the people walking along the canyon and crossing the street. In the summer, in particular, it has become dangerous for everyone. Too busy of a road and too many people.
Boulder trying to control everything as usual. Real issue is the City getting sued.
So where can I read this comissioned report? As am incensed by the increasing amount of decision-making made by “managers” across various corners of our sprawling City Gov based on fuzzy CYA logic among supporting details that are somehow kept private. I’m not even a climber, but these are our public lands and recreational resources after all, which we’ve maintained/subsidized with voter-approved taxes. So if there are studies solicited with public funds and recommendations make from them….we must be looped into that, see the associated costs, and the resulting reports should be disclosed. Let’s also not pretend there are commiserate guarantees of safety in other places where people are “all the time”; like Settlers Park, Eldo Canyon, or around Chautauqua. I also don’t recall the City rejecting those federal infrastructure improvement dollars post-flood to restore this parking area, so it’s a bit late and suspicious to suddenly consider permanent closure. Moreover, the fact that rangers are “constantly” asked about this only affirms how completely opaque this whole process has been. So if we’re talking about fiscal austerity, why is the City still spending millions to move homeless encampments around town to zero discernible benefit?
If I still lived on the Front Range, I seriously doubt that I would obey the closure, since Plotinus Wall was an area that I frequently climbed at and even documented in my 2006 guidebook ‘Boulder Canyon Sport and Adventure Climber’s Guide – Volume 1’.
In fact the Boulder Falls trail was closed and gated off for many years in the 2010 decade. That didn’t stop climbers from going in there then. Why should it stop climbers from going in there now?
I suggest avoiding the area after periods of significant rain or when snow is melting. Slopes that are saturated with water or thawing out are more dangerous and prone to slide. than when they are dry. Dry conditions are always much safer.
The Boulder Falls trail was closed in 2009 by OSMP in response to rockfall hitting an elderly woman on March 29, 2009. I remember the Spring day quite well. This is when all this closure madness began.
I was driving up the canyon with an longtime friend and climbing partner to go climbing at an overhanging cliff know as the Bowling Alley, about a mile up the canyon from Boulder Falls. It was a sunny day after a day of snow. The canyon was thawing out and there was a pile of rock in the West bound lane past Eagle Rock, about 6.5 miles up the canyon. I’ve seen rock in the road here numerous times.
At Boulder Falls, the traffic was stopped and emergency vehicles were present. Soon, rescue workers came up the Falls Trail with a person covered in a blanket on a stretcher. They loaded the person in the ambulance and drove off. The traffic moved forward.
It was a pleasant day to be outside climbing on the sunny north side of the canyon. The climbs that we did were dry, but much of the canyon was still covered in snow and wet.
It is my understanding that the woman died from the rockfall on the Boulder Falls trail. In response, OSMP kept the trail closed for years before doing slope mitigation which was best described as slope destruction. They removed every boulder (small or large) above the trail, which also stripped the hillside of its vegetation. I was shocked when I saw what had been done.
OSMP has a long history of trying to protect people from themselves at Boulder Falls. As far back as 2003, I know of two climbers who were ticketed with steep fines for walking up the hill above the north end of the Boulder Falls trail. This is the approach to Plotinus Wall and the Wall of Winter Warmth. The hillside here was relatively solid with several barriers to catch rocks. So the tickets had nothing to do with potential rockfall, but simply to keep people out of the area behind Boulder Falls where the Plotinus Wall is located. Lots of people who weren’t climbers have also hiked back behind Boulder Falls and into Lower Dream Canyon.
Is it the job of land managers to block access to the outdoors based on safety concerns? Does the Highway Department close Highway 119 up Boulder Canyon because it’s a dangerous road with regular rockfall during and after storms? Your chances of getting killed driving a vehicle are far greater than the possibility that you’ll be injured by rockfall on the Boulder Falls Trail. Outdoor adventure always carries a risk. People shouldn’t be allowed to sue OSMP and the City of Boulder because they got hit by rockfall on a trail. Enter at your own risk. I believe there have long been signs on the trail warning on the danger of falling rocks.
Agree, but that woman was just an observer, not climber and paid with a trail that’s for a climber’s joy. On a day of high risk, that’s impending death she didn’t bargain for like a climber does.
Do you think most people visiting Boulder Falls think of the 1/4 mile walk up to the falls as an “outdoor adventure”? If they did, your argument about people taking responsibility for their own safety might make some sense, but the reality is people think of Boulder Falls as an easy-to-access tourist attraction. Saying “they shouldn’t” just doesn’t cut it.
Even when the trail goes right up close to the falls there are constantly people thinking they need to go that further 10-20 feet. If the official viewing area is moved way back there’ll be droves of people going past it to get closer to the falls. The only practical choices seem to be go all-in to restore close access or close the trail entirely.
Close it permanently. Remove the sign. Give it back to the mountains. Climbers will have to figure out a Plan B.
Anticipation is half the fun ! Why have boulders and not be around them ? Where’s the excitement in closing the area? With that attitude we wouldn’t have ski areas.
Ski areas require you to acknowledge the danger and basically sign away any liability. Publicly accessible places can’t do that.
The woman that you claim “was just an observer” chose on her own free will, to walk down the stone steps of a wet, snowy trail that was marked with signs warning of the dangers of rockfall. If anything should be done, it would be to have a large sign at the entrance saying ‘Enter at your own risk. People have died on this trail from rockfall. Serious rockfall potential exists especially during or after heavy rain or snow storms.’
Do you think most people visiting Boulder Falls think of the 1/4 mile walk up to the falls as an “outdoor adventure”? If they did, your argument about people taking responsibility for their own safety might make some sense, but the reality is people think of Boulder Falls as an easy-to-access tourist attraction. Saying “they shouldn’t” just doesn’t cut it.