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Denver to Moab

A Road Trip Through the American Southwest

By Nick Russill

June 7^th, 2025

The trip began with a simple Google search: “Where’s the best place in the world for mountain biking?” The answer? Moab, Utah. After weeks of Welsh rain had turned our local trails into an unrideable mudscape, the lure of desert slickrock and scenery on steroids made the decision easy. The alternative—Andorra—meant a 30-hour ferry ride, and it was raining there too. No contest.

Colorado National Monument

Everything in the American West feels larger-than-life—more dramatic, more expansive—especially when you’re used to the gentle, rolling hills of home in Wales. Turning off Interstate 70 at Grand Junction, we were plunged into a world that felt almost prehistoric. The road wound its way through sheer red sandstone cliffs and towering monoliths that rose like ancient cathedrals from the desert floor. Colorado National Monument is a landscape of extremes: gravity-defying rock spires, vast plateaus, and canyons carved by millions of years of wind and water.

A Cinematic Stop in Cisco

A long-standing fascination with the Wild West—gold rush towns, sun-bleached saloons, and rusting relics of a frontier past—led us to seek out a ghost town or two. Just over the Utah border, a place called Cisco appeared on the map. It wasn’t a gold mining town, but its origins were still rooted in the machinery of progress—once a critical water stop for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Today, it’s a haunting shell of itself: abandoned cars slowly being reclaimed by rust and time, collapsed wooden structures creaking in the wind, and not a soul in sight. What made our visit even more surreal was the weather—gale-force winds whipping through the landscape, sand stinging our faces and ominous storm clouds in the distance. It felt more like a movie set than real life, fittingly so, as Cisco played a backdrop for the chase scene in Thelma and Louise.

Serious Scenery

Almost without warning, the flat, open desert gave way to a world carved in stone. The road dipped and twisted, and suddenly we were threading through deep sandstone canyons, the kind that seem impossible until you’re inside them. It was here we caught our first glimpse of the Colorado River. Dusk was falling fast, but so was the weather. Thunder rumbled across the valley like distant explosions, while lightning crackled along the horizon. Just before darkness claimed the view, we rounded a bend and saw the Fisher Towers, rising like ancient monuments against the snow-dusted La Sal Mountains beyond.

First Ride in Moab: Dead Horse Point and Slickrock Trails

Arriving in Moab felt like stepping into a mythic landscape built for bikes and film crews. Our first ride was at Dead Horse Point, perched high above the winding Colorado River with the snow-streaked La Sal Mountains brooding in the distance. Not far from the infamous Thelma and Louise point, the place already carried a cinematic charge—but the weather made it feel otherworldly. A freezing wind swept across the plateau, and snow began to settle on the sandstone, giving the slickrock a glassy sheen like it had been dipped in ice but as the temperature crept up just enough to make riding comfortable. Desert slickrock is a marvel. Grippy in a way no trail should be, it let us climb improbable angles and descend into bowls and curves that felt like riding through a giant skatepark. The trails flowed beautifully, navigating by the regular but worn paint stripes on the rock.

Desert Relics: A Field of Fading VWs

A dusty postcard in a Moab gift shop sparked the hunt—a faded photo showing rows of old Volkswagen Beetles and Transporters slowly baking in the desert sun. A few miles west of town, I found it. A graveyard of classic VWs, their iconic curves and colours softened by time, sand, and sunlight. The yard, now up for sale, still held around 50 vehicles in varying states of disrepair—or preservation, depending on how you look at it. One area was dedicated to the legendary VW Cayman, each one looking like it had just rolled out of a ‘70s road trip. The owner had even sliced some of the cars lengthwise to build a makeshift fence. The dry desert air left the metal largely rust-free, with bodywork that bore a beautiful bleached patina. It felt wrong, somehow, that these machines weren’t parked proudly in someone’s garage, restored and on the road again.

Easter Day Sunrise - Corona Arch

On Easter morning, we set out early for Corona Arch, just outside Moab and high above a quiet bend in the Colorado River. A friend had visited the day before and showed us photos too good to ignore. We aimed to catch the sunrise—and we made it. Apart from a few sleepy campers at the trailhead, we had the trail, the silence, and the 140-foot sandstone arch entirely to ourselves. A moment of stillness and scale that felt like a gift.