Goblin Valley State Park
Entrada Canyon was just a trench of dried mud
I've been close to Goblin Valley State Park many times. I've driven past the turnoff on Hwy 24 on my way back from the Grand Canyon. I've done other hikes that were nearby, like Horseshoe Canyon and Bell Canyon and Little Wildhorse Canyon. When Sandy and I did a hike in the San Rafael Swell last November, we even stopped for a sign shot at the road leading to the entrance to the park. I had been trading comments on Facebook with a friend about the park so I sent him a picture of me in front of the sign. But as many times as I had been close, I had never actually visited the park. I was determined to change that. One of the main reasons that I picked Hanksville as a place to stay on this trip to Utah was so I could finally go to Goblin Valley State Park.
I spent the weekend doing my open water dives for PADI scuba certification at a hot spring near Park City. After that I drove to Hanksville. I spent the next day hiking in the San Rafael Swell. I hiked part way through Crack Canyon and later hiked through Chute Canyon. I had one day left and I planned to spend it exploring Goblin Valley and then driving back to Boise when I was done.
Interesting formations as I started to probe into Goblin Valley
When I left Hanksville at 8:30 am it was mostly cloudy. The forecast said it would be mostly sunny so I was hoping that the clouds would burn off. It took about half an hour to drive to the park. I stopped at the entrance station/visitor center but it was closed. That was good news/bad news. The good news was I could get in without paying the $13 entrance fee, which I thought was expensive. The bad news was that I couldn't check out the gift shop at the visitor center. I was hoping to get a good Goblin Valley tshirt.
Just as I got back in my car and was about to drive away, a Utah DNR truck pulled up. The guy rolled down his window and asked if I needed help. He was surprised no one was at the Visitor Center and said he would open it up. So good news, I did get to check out the gift shop. They didn't have any Goblin Valley tshirts that I liked but I did get a cap. Surprisingly they had nice tshirts for Little Wildhorse Canyon, which isn't in the park. It's my favorite hike in the San Rafael Swell so I got one for me and one for Sandy as well, since we had done the hike together. Bad news was, now I had to pay my $13 to get into the park.
In the heart of Goblin Valley
Since they had a lot of info (and even tshirts) about hikes in the San Rafael Swell, while I paid for my stuff I asked the guy about Crack Canyon. It had been bugging me since yesterday that I hadn't been able to make it through since my guidebook said "any reasonably athletic person" should be able to do it. The guy said that yeah, it was just a hike and I should have no problem. Now I was really bugged, since he didn't exactly look like a "reasonably athletic person". He was very heavy. I doubt that he did much hiking. But I decided that I would worry later about when I might get another chance to do Crack Canyon. Now it was time to go into the park and check out some Goblins.
The parking area at the end of the road overlooks the northern end of Goblin Valley. There were a lot of hoodoos, rocks eroded into bizarre shapes. It was similar to Bryce Canyon National Park although not as spectacular or as colorful.
From the parking area you can just drop down into the valley and wander among the rocks. I wanted to do a real trail hike though. There are lots of short hikes in the park so I followed the recommendation of my trusty guidebook, even if it hadn't been so trusty the day before. I started out on the Entrada Canyon Trail. This went through a shallow canyon that paralleled the road leading to the parking area. It was not very exciting. The canyon was only about thirty feet deep. Instead of rock walls, the sides of the "canyon" were essentially dried mud. It was more like hiking through a ditch than a canyon. It made me think of walking in a WWI trench on the edge of No Man's Land. I did pass a few hoodoos but they were not that impressive.
Deep in a maze of Goblins
After about a mile the trail climbed out of Entrada Canyon and I looped back on the Curtis Bench Trail. This followed one of the ridges above the ditch...er, I mean canyon. It was pretty much just open desert with a view of Goblin Valley about a mile away and the Henry Mountains far to the south. Again, nothing very exciting.
When I got close to Goblin Valley the trail dropped back down off the ridge and into a wash that curved off to the southwest. It was supposed to lead into the main part of Goblin Valley so I could loop back to my car but it just kept going parallel to it, one ridge or so away. And it just kept going, and going. The whole hike was only supposed to be three miles so when I reached three and a half miles on my GPS app I decided to just turn around. As I came back up the wash I found a few places where I could cut over to the edge of the main valley and explore a short way into the hoodoos. That was interesting but invariably I would be blocked by a ridge or rock formation after going only a short distance.
At least there's always a place to sit if you get tired
I ended up following the wash almost all the way back to the parking area before I was finally able to get into the main open area of Goblin Valley. There was no trail there. Or there were lots of trails, depending on how you looked at it. You just wandered through the rock formations. I made my own loop out to the far side of the valley and behind a long rocky ridge. Even though the valley looked quite open from above, once I was among the rocks it really became a maze. I intended to loop behind the rocky ridge and then curve back to the parking lot but the ridge just kept going without a break. When I finally reached a gap where I could cross, I couldn't see a clear way back to the car. I had to give up and just retraced my steps back to where I could see the parking lot and walked straight to it. The total hike had taken about three hours of which only the last hour or so had really been interesting.
Looking down on Goblin Valley from the parking area
Overall I wasn't that impressed by Goblin Valley State Park. There really wasn't any serious hiking. The best thing to do was just walk down into the valley and wander around the rock formations. Fun for an hour or so but that's about it. For that, the park entrance fee of $13 seemed awfully steep. The hoodoos were interesting but not as beautiful or spectacular as the ones at Bryce Canyon National Park or nearby Red Canyon. I'm not sure about the imagery either. The rocks didn't suggest anything about goblins to me. I thought that they looked more like big mushrooms. If I was responsible for naming the park and trying to market it, I would have called it the Enchanted Garden, or something like that. Even with my imagination turned all the way up, I couldn't see any goblins anywhere.
Still, I was glad that I had visited the park. I got it checked off my bucket list. The sun had come out midmorning so at least it was a nice day and I had gotten some good exercise. And it was still early. Now I had a decision to make. Do I start home now and get back to Boise early in the evening or do I go back and try one more time to do Crack Canyon? You'll have to read my next post to find out.
