Goblins and a Castle in the Sky

8/5

It was time for me to move on west from Colorado National Monument, heading towards my ultimate destination of Reno. But, as always, I am fairly prone to moseying with a good amount of extraneous exploring. So instead of going to Reno, I went to Goblin Valley!

I've wanted to visit this place for years now, but have just never found the time. Fortunately, it was only a couple of hours away from Fruita, somehow. Seems like it should have been further.

As always, the southern Utah scenery was breathtaking. Something about the wide flat grassy plains dotted with brilliantly-colored buttes and mesas has just always impressed me, more so than any other landscape I've ever encountered.

Also, Utah has the best entrance signs.

But I didn't know how much of a treat I was in for. As I turned off of the main highway to head south to Goblin Valley, I crossed and then paralleled one of Utah's most interesting geologic features: the enormous San Rafael Swell. And yeah, now we're back on geology.

The San Rafael Swell was created, more or less, by tectonic compression, which caused rocks to buckle upwards in a convex dome. Over time, erosion cut down through the uplifted strata, leaving behind these really cool toothlike projections of rock, with bedding pointing up into the sky.

So cool! Highway 24 runs down quite a few miles of the swell, which provided a great opportunity for photos and thinking about rocks (like I don't already think about rocks enough). It is a gem of a highway, with great black fresh asphalt and almost no traffic. I was almost sad to get off of it at Goblin Valley... almost.

But I got excited again when I turned a corner and this amazing butte (mesa?) came into view, looking for all the world like a grand castle in the sky.

I pulled over at the entrance station, which also served as the visitor center, and went in to speak with the person at the front desk. Usually, my habit is to pick up a map and then ask them about their favorite trails, fun things to do, expected time, etc. So I have to say I was hugely disappointed when I asked the girl at the counter these questions, and simply got back a, "Well, there's pretty much one place to go and that's the Goblin Valley... there's not really any trails worth doing other than that, and most people don't spend longer than two hours here." I suspect she was wrong about the trails worth doing, but hey, at least I got honesty from her.

I stepped outside and waited for people to finish taking pictures of Jane - a common occurrence when I'm in parks like this - and then took off for the Goblin Valley. After snapping my own photo, of course.

Yep, lookin good.

It was a 5-minute drive over to the valley, easy peasy. I parked and got out to survey the valley below the parking lot - and quickly found that this park is one of the unstructured ones, where people are encouraged to go wherever they want. I've always had difficulty reconciling that in my head. On the one hand, it's amazing that you are just free to explore and range around wherever you like. But on the other hand, it goes against my inclination to preserve the incredible sights that the park was established to protect in the first place. You never know when someone is going to get it in their head that they should hike across some field and tramp down some critically endangered flower or something. Goblin Valley has, in the past, also had problems with people toppling the goblins (hoodoos), which took thousands of years to form - but only minutes to destroy. It is sad that we have to take steps to protect the natural landscape from the destructive tendencies of people (intended or not), but I still support it.

At any rate, the people in charge of Goblin Valley seem to trust that people for the most part have limited destructive capabilities here, so you are free to range as you like! I headed down into the "valley" of "goblins" - or, more accurately, the eroded depression filled with hoodoos, which were formed by wind- and water-driven erosion of very soft silty rocks. Those closest to the parking lot were fairly unimpressive as hoodoos go, but the further away I got, the more interesting outcrops I found!

I can see why they would call these goblins - they do look like people, especially in silhouette!

A super bizarrely shaped outcrop

On the far side of the valley, I happened to find a small track leading up and over the outcrop serving as the "side" of the valley. Of course I took it - and I found myself looking over an even more awesome collection of goblins! Since this area was much less trafficked, the silt - eroded off of the outcrops and redeposited on the valley floor - was much deeper here. But wow, the varieties of shapes and sizes and groupings were amazing!

A good view of the bedding styles and slight lithological differences that become planes of weakness for erosion

Somehow ended up on top and came out with this amazing view

I wandered around in the back area for a couple of hours - not just to defy the girl who had told me that most people only stayed for two hours, but because I was truly fascinated - and was confronted with a myriad of hoodoos at every turn. Some were tall and slender, some short and squat, some featuring precariously balanced "heads" atop impossibly narrow bodies. It is incredible to think how long it took for those columns to get whittled down to their present state, and sobering to think that every year some of them must collapse entirely. But that is the nature of things, I guess.

At some point, I became aware that it was late afternoon and the temperatures were well into the triple digits. This landscape is unforgiving, harsh in a way that few others are, so much so that barely any vegetation grows near the hoodoos. Part of it is probably the softness of the sediment, and the high abundance of it, but the hoodoos also act as baffles, reducing wind to next to nothing. The rocks also soak up the sun's rays, reflecting it back and intensifying the heat in the bowl. It's no wonder that plants don't want to live here!

I was able to climb up to the top of some sturdier formations to get a few breaths of fresh air every once in a while, but I admit that I was wilting after a few hours had passed. I found another trail going back over the outcrop into the valley next to the parking lot, which was much cooler because of its lower density of goblins.

Maybe it was the heat doing funny things to my brain, but suddenly those goblins looked like sentinels, guarding a castle in the sky.

I hiked back up to the parking lot and then saw a trail going off the side, so I took it and traveled along the rim of the valley for a bit. Off in the distance, out of the main valley, I saw a lone outcrop of three goblins. They seemed to me to be looking out across the plains at the castle, watching and waiting for... what? Maybe they are guardians, keeping the secrets of the castle in the sky safe. Or maybe they are petrified giants, covered in dust and waiting for the day when they are uncovered so they can go home. Or maybe I'm close to heat stroke. Probably the latter, really.

Before I left, a nice man offered to take a couple of photos of Jane and I, which I gladly accepted. I don't get very many "family photos", you know, since I am always the one holding the camera.

After that we jumped back on the road, the hot breeze streaming through the window feeling like the world's most luxurious air conditioning. I do actually have air conditioning, but got out of the habit of using it, and an open window is usually good enough for me. It wasn't really that hot out once we got away from the valley anyways.

I continued southwest and found myself in a familiar place: Capitol Reef National Park. It's been five years since I was here last, back when I was on my first road trip with Jane. At the time, my parents had come out to visit me but we found our explorations cut short by a series of massive storms that swept through and ruined most opportunities for hikes. So I hoped to revisit the park to see a little more of it this time.

As I drove through, I quickly realized how much I've learned in the past five years, geologically speaking. In 2014, I drove through and saw cool cliffs. But now, I drive through and see the remnants of fossilized sand dunes, tidal flats, and even volcanic flows. Ultimately, the end impression is the same: Capitol Reef is a really cool, criminally underrated park.

I realized that I intentionally put bits of Jane into my photos when I take pictures while driving - my way of including the car in my adventure - but probably people just want to see the spectacular scenery, so here's the previous picture but without Jane's wing window in the way.

Hmm, looks like a storm is brewing

As evening was approaching, and a storm with it, I opted to just drive through and into Torrey, where I found an amazing campsite at Thousand Lakes. I know I've said "amazing" a lot in this post, but I'm not lying: this campsite was AMAZINGGGGG!!

Even better, they had brownie sundaes available at the local restaurant, so I got myself one of those and sat down to admire the view and wait for sunset. This part of Utah truly is one of the most beautiful places in the States. Can't wait to revisit Capitol Reef tomorrow!

Until then... Kelly signing out.