Story & Photo by Malcolm Gropper
"Some dreams idle in the back of your mind. Others roar to life and demand action..."
Our epic 23-day assault on Colorado and Utah’s most legendary roads had been brewing for eighteen months—a Porsche enthusiast’s pilgrimage to conquer America’s most breathtaking and treacherous mountain passes.
The star of our show? My 2020 Guards Red 911 Carrera S Cabriolet, shipped cross-country like a prized racehorse heading to the Kentucky Derby. This wasn’t just a road trip—this was automotive warfare against gravity, altitude, and some of the most punishing terrain on the continent.
Denver’s thin air hit us first, but nothing prepared us for the adrenaline surge when that transport truck rolled up two days later. There she sat: gleaming, hungry, and ready to devour mountain passes. We didn’t waste a second—Colorado Springs was calling, and Pikes Peak was waiting to test our mettle.
The ascent up Pikes Peak began as a gentle drive in the rain, transformed into a mysterious tango through the clouds, then exploded into a full-throttle battle against oxygen deprivation at 14,115 feet above sea level. My lungs screamed for mercy, but the Porsche purred like it was born for this torture. Each switchback revealed another jaw-dropping vista until we finally conquered America’s most famous mountain.
The descent was pure poetry in motion—controlled chaos as we carved through hairpin turns, the engine’s growl echoing off canyon walls. Even the Garden of the Gods couldn’t dim our high, despite the rain turning those ancient sandstone sculptures into mysterious, fog-shrouded giants.
The following day we were onto Gunnison’s Black Canyon. Here we were thrown our first curveball—wildfires had locked down everything except the visitor center. But as true adventurers we adapt. We pivoted hard, racing toward Telluride through country roads that twisted like roller coasters through emerald valleys.
At 9,000 feet, Telluride welcomed us with old west charm and jet-set swagger. The Old Victorian Inn became our base camp, perched in this playground of billionaires and powder hounds. Every breath was work, but every view was worth it.
Then came the main event: the “Million Dollar Highway.” Twenty-five miles of automotive insanity between Ouray and Silverton, where the road clings to cliff faces like a desperate climber. No guardrails. Thousand-foot drops. Elevations soaring past 11,000 feet at Red Mountain Pass.
This wasn’t driving—this was surviving. Every turn demanded respect, every straightaway was a gift. The Porsche and I became one machine, dancing on the knife’s edge between exhilaration and disaster. The San Juan Mountains stood as silent witnesses to our mechanical challenge, their peaks scraping the sky while waterfalls thundered into impossible depths below.
Onto Mesa Verde National Park, which promised ancient mysteries, and the Cliff Palace tour delivered—until altitude sickness knocked me flat. Sometimes the mountains win, and wisdom means knowing when to retreat. We cut our stay short, but the glimpse into ancestral Puebloan civilization left us humbled.
The drive to Moab, Utah transformed from Colorado’s alpine drama to red rock theater. This desert playground would test us in ways we never imagined.
The “Delicate Arch” hike? The guidebooks lied through their teeth. “Moderate difficulty” became 3 miles, 700 feet of elevation, 100 degrees in the sun, and 3 hours became pure punishment—scrambling over boulders, navigating cliff edges, gasping for air every forty steps. But when that impossible stone arch appeared, floating against infinite sky, every burning muscle was vindicated.
Later that same afternoon, we strapped into Kawasaki Teryx KRX 1000s for the most insane off-road adventure of our lives. These machines, which we drove in the Arches National Park, attacked near-vertical rock faces with supernatural confidence, our guide driving ahead of us lead us up walls that defied physics. My knuckles went white, my heart hammered, but these beasts never wavered—not once.
After that extraordinary hike and mechanical mayhem, the following day we needed river therapy. The Colorado River raft trip was liquid meditation, cool water and red canyon walls washing away our adrenaline overload.
Our last day in Moab we spent in the Canyonlands National Park . The park served up the grand finale—geological theater on an impossible scale, where time is measured in millions of years and humans are barely footnotes.
On our way to Aspen and Vale, we detoured to “Independence Pass”—12,095 feet of pure terror and beauty. This isn’t a road; it’s a tightrope walk across the Continental Divide. Single lanes force deadly games of chicken with oncoming traffic. Switchbacks so tight they ban RVs entirely. But the payoff? Snow-capped peaks, alpine meadows, and glacial valleys that redefine spectacular.
The Porsche conquered every challenge, engine singing its exhaust note at high-altitude while we carved through the Sawatch Range like sculptors working marble...
Vail provided our victory lap—three days of luxury recovery at The Tivoli Hotel, located in downtown Vail. The Inn provided us with e-bikes for valley exploration. Although Sandi was tentative and anxious at first, she too rode the e-bike. After conquering mountain passes in a Porsche, we pedaled through meadows practically floating on air.
Rocky Mountain National Park, our final destination, delivered our final mountain fix via Trail Ridge Road—48 miles at, 12,000-foot elevation, maintained its supremacy as America’s highest continuous paved road. We again crossed the Continental Divide at Milner Pass, surrounded by alpine tundra and wildflower carpets that stretched to infinity.
The day’s crown jewel? Meeting “Frank,” the park’s legendary monster elk, you could, where it possible, actually lounge comfortably in its wide antlers and whose presence commanded absolute respect.
Returning to Denver, our transport truck waited like a carriage turning back into a pumpkin. Loading the Porsche felt like saying goodbye to a faithful war horse after the greatest battle of our lives.
This wasn’t just a bucket list trip—this was a full-contact dance with the American West’s most savage beauty. And through every terrifying turn, every oxygen-starved summit, every moment when the road disappeared into sky, my wife of 57 years, Sandi rode shotgun and navigated with unwavering courage, never once flinching from the adventure that consumed us both.
21 days. 1,800 miles.
Tundering through two amazing states...
"Countless moments when we touched the edge of the impossible and came back transformed. This is what dreams look like when they’re built from asphalt, altitude, and absolute commitment to the extraordinary."
