Ticaboo Mesa

[Aldaron]

After talking about Ticaboo with audraiam, it got me to thinking that I wanted to go back down in that area. So this past weekend my wife and I headed out to Ticaboo Mesa. We did some hiking on the mesa above the Dante Canyons, but we didn't hike down into the canyons. The descriptions of those canyons sound a little more challenging than I can deal with yet. So we just hiked around and drove around. There's not much to report, but the area was crazy pretty. I had never gotten directly behind the Little Rockies, but I had seen it from the air, so I really wanted to see it from the ground. It didn't disappoint. The sandstone fins, the lake, and the canyons are just beautiful...and we didn't see another soul all day.

We also hiked a little in Maidenwater Canyon, but the downclimbs had my wife a little spooked that day, so we didn't hike much of it.

We saw another helicopter circling over Ticaboo Creek, and we were worried that we were watching another SAR. But the next morning the chopper was setting in the parking lot of the Ticaboo Lodge, so we asked the front desk, and she said they were counting bighorn sheep coming down out of the Henrys.

This is definitely a place worth exploring. I think I want to hike more around Smith Fork Canyon, because that's a really pretty, remote non-technical canyon. I also might want to try my luck at hiking down onto Good Hope Mesa...I'm just not sure how to do it while avoiding the Dante canyons. I hope you like the pictures.






















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[Dan]

nice. you can hike down the slickrock to good hope mesa, the route is a little convoluted though. i'll dig out a map and plot it out for ya.

 

[Nick]

Awesome! This area is intriguing. I haven't been out to the exact spot but my trip through Maidenwater, Trachyte and Swett this year has piqued my interest.

Where did you drop into Maidenwater? We dropped in here:


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It was pretty nice from that side except for the one big down-climb just past the big dryfall. That was pretty sketchy.

 

[Aldaron]

Yeah, that's where we dropped in, also. There was what looked to be an old road on the north side of the canyon about 200 yards or so from the highway that we took down. We went about 30 minutes to a big dry fall and I tried to skirt it on the south side but there wasn't a way down. I backtracked and found a way down on the north side, but by then Tracy was getting spooked for some reason, so I didn't go down below the drop. Was that the sketchy part? Was that the only bad part in that canyon?

I've been down Trail and Swett before, but I want to explore more down Trachyte. And, of course, I'm looking forward to Dan's route to Good Hope. It's good to have an ever growing to do list!

 

[Nick]

Yep. That sounds like the one tricky spot.

This dryfall:


And then the downclimb which was on the north side about 100 yards down canyon (much sketchier than it looks from this angle).



It's all smooth sailing after that. Next time you're down there, I highly recommend it.

 

[Aldaron]

Yeah, I think that was where we turned around. I'm glad to hear that's the only bad part that I need to coax Tracy past!

 

[Aldaron]

Well, I'm thinking about trying to hike out to Good Hope Mesa this weekend, so I Googled to try to find info on routes off of Ticaboo Mesa down onto Good Hope...and, of course, this was the first page in the search results!

Unfortunately, it looks like we never got around to posting any info about routes. Does anyone have info on routes down to Good Hope Mesa? I'll be by myself so I don't want to do anything sketchy.