To fully grasp the grandeur of the Four Corners, aim for the dotted lines, the “unimproved roads” that crisscross maps of the Southwest—particularly the crooked routes that cross patches marked wilderness. On these, you’ll want all-wheel drive, high clearance, and good maneuvering skills; for drivers unaccustomed to rough terrain, a ramble through the Rockies is a baptism by dirt.

Day One: Albuquerque to Ouray (395 miles)

Albuquerque is an easy jumping-off point for a jaunt through the Four Corners. From Albuquerque, head up I-25, for a coffee break in Santa Fe, then take Route 68 and grab some lunch in Taos before heading west on U.S. 64 along the southernmost stretch of the San Juan Mountains. This drive affords as fine a view of alpine pulchritude as you’ll ever see.

One section of U.S. 64 is enticingly labeled closed in winter (obviously a warning meant for faint hearts and flimsy vehicles), and sure enough, 20 miles west of Taos, the terrain changes as abruptly as if a switch had been flipped. U.S. 64 will take you through high meadows and around lakes nestled between 10,000-foot peaks—one with the name Broke Off Mountain.

Shuttle north on U.S. 84 and U.S. 160, skirting the Colorado mountain villages of Pagosa Springs and Durango. Then take Route 550, a.k.a. the Million Dollar Highway, which was built from the slag unearthed when a fortune in gold, zinc, copper—name your ore—was brought down from these mountains. Route 550 will bring you into the old mining town of Ouray—a Telluride without the skiers and the Southern Californians.

At Papa’s Goldbelt Bar and Grill on Main Street in Ouray, everyone sits around picnic tables for dinner. Let it slip that you’re a hunter and you’re instantly part of the gang. Albuquerque to Ouray is, as you’ll have discovered by now, a long drive. Check into the luxurious Wiesbaden Hot Springs Spa & Lodgings and soak out the road fatigue in the thermal springs.

Day Two: Ouray to Blanding (193 miles)

Head out on Route 62 to routes 145 and 90, which cross an almost unknown stretch of western Colorado called Paradox Valley. A 20-mile-long floodplain, it’s hemmed in by red mesas on one side and conifer-green ridges on the other. From here, the ranches that dot the valley below look like distant galaxies.

A spasm of twists and turns announces the rise toward the canyonlands and the Utah state line, which you cross on Route 46. Head south on U.S. 191 to Route 211, regarded as one of the most scenic roads in America—which it is, with a place named Photographer Gap to prove it. Route 211 is also an artery into Canyonland's National Park—Utah’s largest—and its network of unimproved roads. John Wesley Powell described the park’s landscape as “a wilderness of rocks . . . and ten thousand strangely carved forms in every direction.” Its red-rock canyons, if you and your car are up for a bumpy ride, are well worth a look.

From Route 211, backtrack to U.S. 191, which takes you into Blanding, home to the Edge of the Cedars State Park. Here, you can see an ancestral Puebloan village and a museum with some well-documented artifacts once used by the Pueblo, Navajo, and Ute tribes. The rooms at the Rogers House Bed & Breakfast Inn on Blanding’s South Main Street are individually decorated—check out the Cowboy Room—and the Old Tymer Restaurant just down the road serves up hearty comfort food.

Day Three: Blanding to Bluff (63 miles)

Most drivers take U.S. 191 to get from Blanding to the Navajo Nation in Arizona, but a sinuous dotted line going south off Route 95 through Comb Wash rewards the intrepid. The Navajo believed that the Comb Ridge was the spine of the earth; technically it’s a monocline, a geologic formation that resembles two slabs of lasagna that don’t quite fit in one pan, so that one overlaps the other, exposing a tipped-up edge. The pan is southern Utah, and the overlapping slabs are layered sedimentary rock. Climb west on Route 95, which will take you toward the crest of the top slab, where a narrow slit will appear suddenly, half a mile long and two lanes wide—a neat cleft in the rock at the tip of the monocline.

After emerging from the cleft, you’ll then descend into a whole new landscape: Comb Wash, the sagebrush-covered bottomlands of the lower slab, bounded by Cedar Mesa to the west. Look back and you’ll see what the Navajo meant: Comb Ridge rises up exactly like an exposed spine, an 80-mile-long escarpment of tomato-colored Mesozoic lasagna.

A shortcut off Route 95 is right where the map says it will be. This slippery dirt road twists every which way but backward under the shadow of Comb Ridge, and after about 20 miles, a crossroad marks the turnoff for Snow Flat Road. (Any reliable car can drive about 95 percent of Snow Flat Road. The other 5 percent are the money miles—the miles you can’t do without four-wheel drive, fat tires, and high clearance.) Take this road up to Route 261 and head south down Cedar Mesa. At its very edge, a red-dirt spur road appears, angling west to a spot called Muley Point Overlook. You can drive your car to the very edge of the exposed rock lip of Cedar Mesa; there are no fences, no warning signs. From here, the view is panoramic and all the more heart-stopping for being so unexpectedly sweeping. Muley Point affords full 180-degree views toward the Arizona border—of Navajo Mountain, Shiprock, and Monument Valley.

Backtrack to Route 261, which drops off Cedar Mesa to a stretch called the Mokee Dugway, a switchbacked highway that must be as extreme as any in America, descending 1,100 feet in 2.3 miles. (If you have a sunroof, be sure to poke your head out of the car for the view. The Mokee Dugway demands being looked at up and down, not just across.)

The tiny village of Bluff doesn’t offer much in the way of lodging, but the rooms at the Desert Rose Inn & Cabins are clean and comfortable. You can eat your barbecue in the shade of a magnificent cottonwood tree at the town’s Cottonwood Steakhouse.

Day Four: Bluff to Chinle (154 miles)

You can see Shiprock Peak from every quadrant of the Four Corners, but you can’t get to it. The 7,178-foot volcanic monolith has been strictly verboten since 1939, the year it was climbed—and thus desecrated—by Anglos, including the one-time executive director of the Sierra Club, David Brower.

Head south on U.S. 191, aiming for the northern boundary of the Navajo Nation and continue past the town of Many Farms into Chinle. You won’t find many dining options here, aside from the standard fast-food joints, but you can get a filling meal and table service at the Junction Restaurant, next to Chinle’s Best Western. Check into the Thunderbird Lodge, a comfortable motel built around a trading post that has been on the edge of Canyon de Chelly for 100 years.

Day Five: Chinle to Albuquerque (239 miles)

The rim roads of Canyon de Chelly National Monument are open to all, but if you have four-wheel drive, a Navajo guide will take you down into the canyon itself, where prehistoric and historic sites—as many as 800—coexist with the present-day homes of Navajo descendants of the ancient Pueblo culture. The cliff walls tower hundreds of feet above the canyon floor, and nestled within them are centuries-old pueblos, or cliff dwellings.

Canyon de Chelly is fed by natural springs, so there’s almost always fresh water spilling across the floor, which is 1,000 feet lower than the highest walls. Your Navajo guide might point out wild Russian olive trees, side canyons, hawks, grazing sheep, or the canyon’s ancient petroglyphs.

When you’re ready to head back to Albuquerque, take Route 64, which follows the north rim of the canyon on the way to Tsaile. From there, U.S. 12 hugs the state border as it winds through high, open land and vistas of the Chuska Mountains. Stop in Window Rock, tribal headquarters, for lunch, and then take 264 to I-40, back to Albuquerque.

Pit Stops

Blanding

Rogers House Bed & Breakfast Inn (435-678-3932; rogershouse.com; doubles, $69). Old Tymer Restaurant (435-678-2122; entrées, $5–$19).

Bluff

Desert Rose Inn & Cabins (435-672-2303; desertroseinn.com; doubles, $69). Cottonwood Steakhouse (435-672-2282; entrées, $8–$16).

Chinle

Thunderbird Lodge (928-674-5841; tbirdlodge.com; doubles, $101–$106). Junction Restaurant (928-674-8443; entrées, $6–$15).

Ouray

Wiesbaden Hot Springs Spa & Lodgings (970-325-4347; wiesbadenhotsprings.com; doubles, $120–$175; treatments, $65–$75). Papa’s Goldbelt Bar and Grill (970-325-7242; entrées, $7–$14).