US 160 - Tuba City

We began surveying the right of way of a five mile stretch of US 160 near Tuba City, Arizona. Tuba City is on the Navajo Reservation just East of Grand Canyon National Park. This job involves our standard procedure of locating the highway right of way monuments as well as the PLSS Cadastral Survey corners in the area.

The landscape here is extremely unique and has the feel of working on Mars. Very little grows here and the ground is composed of sand and loosely bonded sand.


The swift erosion of the ground here creates large washes and adventurous hiking to get to the survey monuments and often we found the monuments could no longer grasp the crumbling stone.



This area is rich in prehistoric remnants including real fossilized dinosaur tracks and marine life.

While searching for a survey monument, we came across this stone which has an exposed fossil of what appears to be a sort of star fish. The fossil impression is about three inches across. I was ecstatic to have found such a specimen.

It is also monsoon season in Arizona and the constant rumble of nearby thunderstorms was ever present. Here you can see one approaching the Grand Canyon with the North Rim still sun lit in the middle right of the picture.



Google Earth Lat/Long: 36°06'40.21"N,111°17'53.86"W