At 1½ miles east of the Glade Park Store and Post Office is the intersection with the improved gravelled Little Park Road, which will be described later. At 2¾ miles beyond this intersection, the DS Road leaves the Entrada Sandstone and is on a wooded stretch of the Kayenta Formation the remaining 2 miles to Rim Rock Drive. The last one-tenth of a mile is crooked and steep, so please slow down before reaching the stop sign at the intersection. Some years ago the brakes on a pickup truck failed as the driver approached the stop sign, but he was lucky enough to jump out at the top of the cliff just before the truck plunged to the bottom of Columbus Canyon.
From Glade Park to Grand Junction Via the Little Park Road
GLADE PARK FAULT
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From the intersection 1½ miles east of the Glade Park Store and Post Office, let us turn southeast on the recently improved and gravelled Little Park Road around the head of No Thoroughfare Canyon, which was added to the Monument in 1978 ([fig. 3]). From the intersection it is about 14 miles to Grand Junction by this route. In half a mile we reach the new boundary of the Monument at a minor drainage divide, and as we start down a steep hill beyond we may park on the right and look southeastward across No Thoroughfare Canyon along the Glade Park fault ([fig. 58]) which has produced the fishtail shape of the head of the canyon, as shown in figures [8] and [59]. A different view of the fault and canyon head is shown by the stereoscopic pair of aerial photographs in [figure 59].
The Little Park Road closely follows the new Monument boundary around the south end of No Thoroughfare Canyon, either on the Kayenta Formation or Entrada Sandstone, and affords good views into the canyon from several places. East of the southeast arm of the canyon, the road leaves the boundary and goes northeastward about 4 miles to the end of the improved part of the road, but the unimproved part is good, and the lower 5 miles is paved. On my geologic maps[41] of the area, I called this road by its older name—the Jacobs Ladder Road.
LADDER AND ROUGH CANYONS
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About a quarter of a mile from the end of the improved stretch, one may turn right on two tire tracks, travel about a quarter of a mile farther, and park near the junction of Rough and Ladder Canyons, where interesting geology is reachable by short walks up Ladder Canyon or down Rough Canyon. About a mile up Ladder Canyon is an interesting abandoned mica mine.[42]