Desert Daze - A Southwest Adventure (XVII)

Part Seventeen: Ticaboo Town, Pedestal Alleyway and the Great Wall

(Story continued from the April 28th posting. not the May 1st one.)

It’s a miracle - the fumes of the fumes get me to Ticaboo. And there are gas pumps here – Hooray! Turns out Ticaboo isn’t really so much a town as it is an all-in-one resort complex. It was established in the 70’s as another uranium mining town, but now relies on tourism business due to its relative proximity to Lake Powell (about eleven miles from here.) So here, in the middle of desolate nowhere, you’ll find everything you could possibly need – a store, deli, motel, tavern and, of course, gasoline. It’s probably a hoppin’ place in the summer, but now, in winter, the store looks closed. Oh no, now what do I do? But when I see that the gas pumps operate 365/24/7 by credit card, relief floods through me. Hooray indeed!

Flush with gas (the truck, not me), I continue south towards the lake. I spy a road labeled as a ‘Scenic Backway’ heading off towards the west. A sign indicates that this road will take me to the little town of Boulder and that’s exactly where I want to go - I desperately need a shower. So, if this road will get me to Boulder and someone thinks it’s scenic, that’s enough for me; I turn.

The road turns to dirt after a few miles but it is well-graded - so far. Dipping down into a ravine, I see a ‘Road Closed’ sign at the side of the road. Evidence in the form of eroded road bed and still-wet earth high up on the banks of the gully show why it was closed - the creek running through it had obviously recently flash flooded. Fortunately, the water is now low enough for me to ford it; I push on despite the little voice in my head questioning whether that’s a good idea. I tell the voice to shut up - after all, that’s what I’m here for - adventure!

Whoever designated this road scenic sure got it right. Grand walls of layered limestone accented by red striped mounds lying at its base rise monumentally in front of me as far as I can see.

Turns out this wall of rock I am driving next to is the ‘Waterpocket Fold’, a long warp in the Earth's crust. It’s a monocline: a regional fold with one very steep side in an area of otherwise nearly horizontal layers. A monocline is a "step-up" in the rock layers; the layers on the west side of the Waterpocket Fold have been lifted more than 7000 feet higher than the layers on the east. Major folds are almost always associated with underlying faults. The Waterpocket Fold formed between 50 and 70 million years ago when a major mountain building event in western North America, the Laramide Orogeny, reactivated an ancient buried fault. When the fault moved, the overlying rock layers were draped above the fault and formed a monocline. However it was formed, it’s impressive – essentially a ‘Great Wall’ of rock that stretches for nearly 100 miles!

On my right, a trailhead sign whizzes by. I turn around to investigate - the trail leads to the ‘Pedestal Alleyway’, a small canyon full of hoodoos.

By now, you’d think I’d have had enough of hoodoos but I can’t resist. The hike is tough going; it’s through disturbed desert (cattle grazing – I’ll say it again, what in the heck are cattle doing grazing in the desert?), a painfully slow slog through loose sand. I realize that my legs are still very tired from all the ambitious hiking I’ve been doing and that has, combining with not drinking enough water, reduced my legs to little more than wobbly wet noodles.

I finally make it to the 'alleyway' and it's an intriguing place. All varieties of hoodoos have ‘sprouted’ here in this little canyon - short ones, tall ones, skinny ones, fat ones and even some that strikingly resemble a certain part of a man’s anatomy, if you get my drift.

But I have to admit that by now I have seen so many of these rock peculiarities that I am a little hoodoo'ed out. I shoot a few shots and then begin the long slog back. Lift foot, move it forward, put foot down, now the other. This is the way I’m feeling, like every step is a process. I’m so very tired of hiking through energy-sapping sand.

Finally, back at the truck, I wolf (why wolf, why not coyote?) down some peanut butter and jelly (no bread) and drink at least a half a gallon of water. This refreshes me both physically and mentally and I am now ready for more adventure – well, maybe only of the driving kind for the rest of this day.

Next: Holy Sh*t, You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me, This Road Goes Where?