Ten minutes from downtown Grand Junction, the landscape changed. Storefronts and gas stations gave way to sandstone cliffs, and soon I was driving through a narrow gate cut into rock. The road climbed, curling above the valley, until the horizon broke open into a vast amphitheater of red stone and space.

At the Ute Canyon overlook, wind threaded the cliffs, carrying only the sound of itself. Below, canyons unfolded in layered tiers, burnished by the morning sun. A pair of raptors hovered in the updrafts, riding the thermals with barely a wingbeat. The scene felt both immense and strangely intimate—like stumbling into a cathedral with no one inside.

That moment marked the beginning of a twelve-day drive across Colorado’s Western Slope. Unlike the crowded highways and national parks I’d left behind, this stretch of the state—one-third of Colorado’s land but home to less than ten percent of its people—offered something increasingly rare.

The Western Slope is defined by contrast. It’s both alpine and desert, abundant and arid, young in its wine industry but ancient in its human history. Grapes and peaches thrive here only because of elaborate irrigation systems, yet long before canals and dams, the Ute and ancestral Puebloans managed to live, farm, and endure in this climate. Their knowledge of conservation—how to store food, manage water, and adapt to cycles of scarcity—remains visible in places like Mesa Verde and feels urgent again in a century shaped by drought and fire.

This wasn’t the story I expected to find when I set out on the Great American Road Trip. I thought it would be about wine and food, about discovering the unexpected pleasures of orchards tucked beneath mountains, or finding a restaurant in a small town serving plates you’d expect in a capital city. And it was. But as the miles unwound—through valleys of fruit, towns shaped by mining booms and busts, alpine passes, and cliff dwellings—the road trip revealed something more: a landscape that teaches how abundance and fragility can exist side by side.

From here, the itinerary would carry me through vineyards in Paonia and Palisade, over to Grand Junction’s wine and food scene, into the drama of the San Juans, and south to Mesa Verde before ending in Durango. The first lesson, standing above the Ute Canyon, came quickly: in the West, perspective changes fast.

Finding Abundance in the High Desert

The Western Slope can feel like an improbable place. No more so than in wine country.

Driving towards the towns of Paonia and Hotchkiss, one passes mesas topped in sage before dropping into a patchwork of vineyards and orchards quilted against the foothills of the West Elk Mountains. This is one of the country’s highest winegrowing regions and also one of its smallest. A mere dozen wineries make up the entire appellation.

At this elevation, the extremes are hard to miss: summer growing days run hot, while desert nights cool down fast. Every harvest hangs on that balance. My itinerary took me to a half dozen wineries, where I tasted everything from bright and nervy Riesling to fragrant, delicate Pinot Noir.

These were not the wines I expected when thinking “Colorado.” After each tasting, winemakers reminded me about the fragility of their calling—one frost could erase an entire season of work.

Further on, the valley opened up into Palisade, where summer fruit stands overflowed with late-season cherries and ripe, juicy peaches. Verdant vineyards stood in contrast to a backdrop of arid sandstone cliffs.

The town of Palisade has an outsize food scene—it’s also a magnet for bachelorette parties that come to taste (drink) wine by day and hit the dive bar for karaoke by night.

That evening, I dined at Pêche, Brandi and Spencer Platt’s James Beard-nominated seasonal restaurant. I sat with a few winemakers, sipping a dizzying line-up of grapes. Austrian varieties like Grüner Veltliner and Zweigelt challenged notions of what the region should grow. Platters of Blaine’s Tomatoes, sliced into a vivid salad, followed by gently seasoned peaches the color of Arizona’s Antelope Canyon, landed on the table. Plates of seared local beef with a rosy red center cast a quiet spell over the group.

Back in Grand Junction, the town vibe shifted again. Murals decorated the city’s brick walls, while breweries filled up with summer crowds. At Bin 707, I dined with a few winemakers, tasting lamb in strawberry bordelaise, chicken liver mousse with pistachios, and Colorado ribeye grilled to perfection. To pair, they poured Pinot Noir and Syrah from some of the state’s highest vineyards in Cortez.

It was a lively, generous evening, yet the same unease threaded through conversations. Nothing grows without irrigation. Vineyards rely on century-old water rights, rights based on expectations that snowpack will always build and rivers will always run each year. The meals and the wines were a joy, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were also a wager on the future.

Skiing, Hiking, Drinking

From the high desert of the Grand Valley, I drove south into the San Juans, where the terrain changed with altitude. Sharp peaks rose in cinematic relief, their slopes catching the summer light. Soon, Telluride appeared at the end of a box canyon, its main street framed like a set piece. Wealth has remade the town, with real estate prices pushing into Jackson Hole territory, yet it still carries the vibe of a tight-knit community.

After checking in to The Madeline Hotel & Residences, the city’s most luxe resort, I rode the gondola from Mountain Village to downtown in fifteen minutes. It may be the most charming civic feature in the Rockies: a public transit system that is disguised as a scenic ride.

I managed to squeeze in a few hikes, including Bridal Veil Falls, Colorado’s tallest free-falling cascade. Each trail drew me further into the paradox of the area: a landscape vast in scale yet increasingly constrained by human ambition.

That night, I took a few turns around the city with Telluride Tom, the town’s unofficial mayor. We had one mission: to embark on a drinking tour, but not before we enjoyed dinner in the city’s most ambitious restaurant, The National.

After, we visited Telluride Distilling Company for whiskey and peppermint schnapps, stopped in Communion Wine Bar for a cocktail, then ended the night at a bike shop turned speakeasy. The conversation skipped between gossip, ski conditions, and the summer lineup of music festivals.

Ghosts in the Mountains

The next morning I headed for the most remote part of the trip: Dunton Hot Springs. I drove past alpine scenery and glittering lakes, then turned off the paved highway onto a dirt road. The signal dropped almost immediately, leaving me second-guessing the route.

At a pull-off, I got out of the car and flagged a woman in a Jeep behind me. She rolled down her window, her Aussie shepherd dog panting in the passenger seat, and unfolded her paper map.

“You can take a photo if you like,” she said, handing me the map to prove I was on the right—and only—road. With no other options, I committed to traversing muddy ruts and rocky switchbacks until the old mining settlement appeared like a mirage.

What was once a ghost town is now one of the most atmospheric retreats in the American West. Original 1800s log cabins have been restored and insulated yet left otherwise intact, their crooked porches and low ceilings preserving the bones of another era.

Inside the saloon of the main property, Butch Cassidy’s name remains carved into the bar—a relic from the summer of 1889, when he hid here after robbing a bank in Telluride.

There’s not much to do at Dunton, which is the point. You can enjoy a morning hike through the wildflowers, an afternoon soak in the rusty-hued hot spring pools, and a little reading by lamplight at night.

Driving away, I thought about the phases of life lived here: once a mining camp, later abandoned, then a ghost town revived from an outlaw hideout to a luxury resort. The mountains seemed to hold every version of history at once, a reminder that the only constancy is change.

Ancient Peoples of Mesa Verde

Leaving Dunton, I drove east through mountain meadows and aspen groves, then continued south, noticing how the air dried out and the forests thinned. The ground leveled into broad mesas. By the time I reached Mesa Verde, the desert had returned, though not the same as before. This one hid the secret of vast bygone societies.

Mesa Verde National Park protects more than 600 cliff dwellings and thousands of archaeological sites, the remains of a civilization that lasted here for centuries. The ancestral Puebloans built homes, towers, and ceremonial kivas into the stone. Their descendants—the Hopi, Zuni, Ute, and Navajo—still return, keeping the connection alive.

Most visitors imagine the cliff dwellings as the sole village structure in the park, but the earliest families lived on the mesa tops. They farmed corn, beans, and squash—the three sisters—in a climate of minimal rain and long winters.

Only after generations of living on the roof of the world did they begin to migrate into the cliff faces. Standing on the mesa, you don’t see the architecture until you reach the rim.

At Cliff Palace, the largest dwelling, a ranger guided me down steep steps and up wooden ladders. The site held dozens of rooms that once sheltered a community. The architecture looked exacting. Hand-hewn blocks shaped to fit tight seams. Plaster smoothed neatly onto walls. Circular kivas sunk into the ground for ritual and daily use. Oddly, nothing about it felt primitive. It was carefully engineered.

According to the ranger, to live here was to live within the means of the land. Come fall, harvests had to be dried and stored to endure the winter, while water, a scarce resource, needed to stretch across seasons.

By the late 1200s, something in the ecosystem broke. A prolonged drought affected the region, but archaeologists believe that climate was not the only reason people left. The misuse of land, political fractures, and hunger may all have contributed to the situation. Collapse didn’t arrive like a thunderclap but unfolded across seasons until remaining was no longer possible.

America’s Best Small Town?

From Mesa Verde, the road to Durango winds through canyons before opening up into a lively Western town. Downtown blocks feature tidy Victorian homes with shaded porches and front gardens overflowing with summer blooms. Compared to many American cities, overrun with parking lots, chain stores, and fast food restaurants—or Colorado’s seasonal resort towns—Durango felt like a place built for living.

I checked into the Rochester Hotel, a small historic property with a busy lobby bar, then set out for a wander. Cafés spilled onto the sidewalks. Record shops and galleries shared blocks with antique stores and breweries. The mix didn’t seem overly curated or polished but felt like an organic evolution, the way towns grew before real estate speculation rearranged them.

One afternoon, I climbed the Sky Steps, more than 500 wooden stairs leading from a residential street to a ridge above. At the top, I could see the La Plata Mountains flanking the city, the town spread in a neat grid, framed by the river below. I liked its modest scale.

Evenings proved lively. Locals hiked, biked, and rafted during the day, then drank and listened to live music at night. At Ska Brewing’s summer barbecue, families and dogs crowded the picnic tables while a band played on the patio. Another night ended at El Rancho Tavern, a dive bar with pool tables and craft beer, where strangers struck up conversation with visitors.

What Can Be Learned?

Mesa Verde wasn’t far geographically or, in the scheme of human timelines, historically. Its story sat with me as I thought about how life in the West has always been conditional. The ancestral Puebloans lasted for centuries by conserving and adapting. When the balance tipped, they left.

That lesson shadows the present. Grapes grow because water can be diverted. Orchards thrive because rights to rivers were secured generations ago. The restaurants, breweries, and hotels all depend on systems that feel more precarious with every drought and diminished snowfall.

Over twelve days, the Western Slope gave me more than good meals and memorable vistas. It revealed how precarious life in Western towns—and the agriculture much of the country relies on—truly is. Yet it’s in that liminal space, between the margins, that beauty thrives. After all, isn’t the desert bloom the rarest and most unforgettable?

If You Go

Grand Junction

Stay at the Hotel Melrose, a boutique property restored in 2023 with a fresh downtown vibe. Dinner at Bin 707 Foodbar is essential—James Beard finalist Josh Niernberg serves Colorado-driven dishes with a sustainability ethos that sets the tone for the region.

Palisade

Check into the Spoke and Vine Motel, a renovated motor lodge with clean-lined rooms and plenty of character. Start with tacos and margaritas at Fidel’s, then book a table at Pêche, Brandi and Spencer Platt’s seasonal restaurant that has earned national acclaim.

Paonia & the North Fork Valley (West Elks AVA)

Base yourself at the Bross Hotel, a historic, family-run inn. Dinner at Mesa Winds Winery unfolds on the farm’s deck, often paired with pours from neighbors like Fallen Mountain. Tastings in this high-elevation appellation include Alfred Eames Cellars; Stone Cottage Cellars, known for alpine whites; The Storm Cellar, specializing in Riesling and Pinot Gris; Qutori Wines, producing delicate Pinot Noir; and LaNoue Dubois Winery, focused on frost-resistant hybrids.

Grand Valley AVA

Sample wines at Restoration Vineyards, which doubles as a summer concert venue, and at Colterris, recognized for its Sauvignon Blanc and Malbec. Other standouts include Sauvage Spectrum, The Ordinary Fellow, Carlson Vineyards, and Buckel Family Wine.

Telluride

The Madeline Hotel delivers alpine luxury at the base of the gondola. For dining, The National offers inventive, big-city-caliber menus. Drinks range from Stronghouse Brew Pub to Communion Wine Bar, where cocktails lean on foraged ingredients.

Dunton Hot Springs

Seek seclusion at Dunton Hot Springs, a restored mining settlement, where log cabins and naturally heated pools hide between the mountains.

Durango

Stay at the Rochester Hotel, a leafy downtown property rich in history and charm. In summer, Ska Brewing’s patio barbecues draw a lively crowd, while James Ranch Grill serves pasture-raised meats and produce overlooking a 400-acre ranch. Just fifteen minutes outside town, Durango Hot Springs offers steaming pools with mountain views, a perfect way to unwind after a day of hiking or rafting.



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