Trips of Utah: ‘Gobbling’, and back to the Lake City

Day Five: Goblin Valley State Park

Route 24 - on way to Goblin Valley

There was not much in plan for the final day; the only plan was to visit Goblin Valley state park and then heading back to SLC. We had covered most of the accessible points of Capitol Reef the previous evening. The drive to SLC was more than 200 miles, so we feared planning anything more than goblin valley for the day. But on the previous night, when I had grabbed a map from the hotel reception, I was looking into the places along hwy 24. There was this place called Little Wild Horse canyon very near to Goblin Valley State Park, which I found to be interesting.   It interested me because, unlike other hikes, this was a 5 mile hike through a slot canyon (You head through little wild horse canyon for around 3.5 miles and return through adjacent Bell canyon- around 1.5 miles). But as we dug into the details further, we got to know that there is a 5 mile gravel/ unpaved road to reach there. With our previous gravel road experiences at Monument valley and Valley of the Gods, we did not want to risk this on a last day. However, we kept the decision pending, and decided to inquire about it in Goblin valley visitor center.

  

Along Route 24

The day's journey started as we hit route 24 eastbound. We passed along the high red walls of the capitol reef again, as we drove further ahead of the capitol dome. As we moved forward, the topography changed, the walls with red and maroon were no more there, instead the color shifted to grey and black! It looked as if capitol reef had been put on an Eastman movie frame of the 70s!

Highway 24 turns left at Hanksville. After adding few more miles, we took the left turn towards temple mountain road and then 5 miles further, another left into Goblin Valley road (A marker  ‘valley of the goblins’ indicates this road, on otherwise deserted road). We stopped by the entry gate of the state park and got to know that, that tiny building itself has the visitor center, gift shop, restroom everything! There was only one ranger who managed the entire park. We headed further into the park, towards the valley. Our initial presumption before reaching here was that, there was a hike (at least a mile long one) to get into the valley. But as we saw it here, it was less than 100 steps downhill and we were already in the valley!  There are couple of trail-heads that start near the campsite. But for getting into the valley and walking through the valley, there is none. So you can walk anywhere in the valley!

Goblin Valley - As viewed from the viewpoint

It was fun walking through the mushroom shaped entrada sandstone structures, it appeared as if it was some 3D animated movie with full of cartoon characters around. The funky shaped rocks even though appeared small when viewed from the park’s observation point, were actually larger than human life-size. We got down into the valley from one end of the observation deck and planned to return from the other side. We later learnt that the area was earlier known as Mushroom valley, due to the resemblance of the hemi-sphere capped tower structures to the mushrooms, but later it was renamed as ‘Goblin valley’. There is almost zero vegetation around, a typical high desert, and we never spotted trees miles together.  

Goblin Valley - Alien Encounter!

The goblins of various size, somewhere starting from about 5 feet, up to 10 feet long. We stopped by near some of them for pictures. The valley is not of large area, its only few square miles. So, we could roam around anywhere and the shaded roof of the view point was visible. All we had to do was head back towards the viewpoint once  we were done dealing with the goblins.  Almost an hour after we started, we headed back towards the view point.

Goblin Valley - Garden of mushrooms!

The temperature was on its high 90s, so water bottles emptied one after the other.  Once we returned to the car, we again reevaluated our options for rest of the day. With the given remaining time, we still had the slot canyon hike option open .So, we headed to the visitor center for inquiry. Our intention was to hike for a mile or half, through the slot canyon and then return back. We didn't want to hike more than that.  The ranger at the visitor center guided with more details on the road and the trails. We learnt that there is almost a mile’s hike from the parking lot to even have a first sight of slot canyon. That would easily become a 3-4 mile hike if we had to really enjoy the slot canyon. Adding to this, was the road condition, 5 miles on a gravel road.  With more than 4 hours of drive to reach SLC, and with the clock crossing 12:30 afternoon already, we decided to skip this option.

Our next 2 options for the day was – (a) drive to the city , have a good dinner and roam around till 9 OR (b) go towards the city and drive to one of the state parks ( Antelope Island State park on the Salt Lake or ‘This is the Place’ heritage park). We chose option (a).

Goblin Valley - They are watching us!

For the next 5 hours we drove through I70 and I15 with a couple of breaks for gas, food and a short nap. I70 had the Speed limit of 75 mph, and I-15 had 80 mph! So I believe the work for Highway patrol is half reduced here.  If you are driving at 80s, you are just doing fine!  The only fear was being hit by a deer, but as there were plenty of vehicles ahead, the chances were remote. 

Speaking about the dear hits, I should say something that we learnt from the Motel owner at Canyonlands, during our late night check-in. He had told us to avoid driving on highways during nights." I know people who had come here for just couple of days, but ended up staying here for weeks because of their car being totaled due to deer hits, so better be safe than sorry" – he had warned.  There were average 5 deer hits per day, on road that linked Moab to Monument Valley. Supporting his fact, was a deer-hit counter mounted on the side of one of the highways that read 107! (I don’t know if that is per week or per month) We had some night drive plans before (like watch the sunset at one place and then drive to our stay at next destination after sunset). But we had dropped that plan and chose to drive to our next destinations before sunset, and be there for the sunset.

Salt Lake City Temple of LDS

We reached Salt Lake at around 5 PM. We planned to stop for an hour at the Temple Square. I had read about it before and was curious to see. I was looking for a free parking slot, but most of them were paid. One of the pedestrians grinned at me and said, "there are not much things for free in this city". But the funny thing was, I got a slot that was not only free, but I got paid too! There was one parking slot machine where when I pressed a button, it returned 6 quarters. We spent some time roaming around Temple square. There was this iconic Salt Lake temple, and a lot of museums and Visitor centers of Latter Day Saints (LDS). 

State Capitol dome spotted!

Most of them were boring for us. We took Photos of some of the buildings and tried entering one of them. Beehive house , was supposed to be the house of one of their cult leaders. The sisters in that center, started describing the house, we felt extremely bored as we hardly knew anything about LDS.  The place was nothing of our interest, so we ‘escaped’ from there soon. Along the road, we spotted the dome of the State Capitol and once had a thought of reaching there. But later we dropped the plan. After a stroll in the campus, we headed to the nearby mall area to spend rest of our time. A relaxing Indo-Chinese dinner at Saffron Valley East Indian Cafe in the downtown ended our most eventful trip of Utah.

Day 5 Agenda

We headed back to the airport and returned the rental car; we were just in time for boarding. With one more hour earned (MST to PST), and of course with lot of delightful memories earned, we flew back to our hometown PDX!