Eighteen members of the Marlboro Adventure Team and an entourage of foreign journalists step off the bus. In response to its rigorous international promotion campaign aimed at young adults, Philip Morris claims to receive nearly 1 million adventure team applications worldwide for its annual desert event. To welcome them to Marlboro Country, motorcyclists do doughnuts in the sand while Marlboro jeeps toot their horns and rev their engines. Cowboys on horseback whoop and holler with their packs of dogs yipping underneath. A camera crew pans in for close-ups of the team members, whose eyes are pinched shut from the sunlight.
Someone announces the cameras are rolling, and a flood of questions shoots through the hot air.
Moab has more than 5,000 miles of off-road trails. Mining companies carved many of them in the 1950s to reach pockets of uranium. The trails wind through sandstone cliffs and sand washes hidden by salt cedar scrub bush and pinyon. When the mineral boom went bust, a different industry took over. Today, Moab and its rocky environs are a top destination for outdoor recreation.