Goblin Valley (Goblin's Lair Rappel) June 1-2, 2018

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Had a nice little trip down to Goblin Valley this weekend. Two of my high school buddies tagged along for the trip. Friday night we headed out of Provo and drove straight to Goblin Valley State Park. Instead of paying for camping in the park, we took a right onto Wild Horse Rd. right before the entrance gate, and found an awesome camping spot tucked into the cliffs to our left. Made some dinner, watched the sun go down, Pulled out my camera and messed around with the stars for a while, then crawled into my sleeping bag. Woke up early, watched the shadows disappear, made breakfast, packed up and headed into the park. Brace yourself for a picture dump.


 




We payed the entrance fee and drove on in. Past the 3 sisters, to the parking lot overlooking the hoodoo filled valley. We divided our rappel gear, loaded up, and headed into the back portion of the park. There are plenty of places to find exact locations and details on this rappel. I personally suggest using the roadtripryan website. Link below.

https://www.roadtripryan.com/go/


Hidden in the back of the valley is an unassuming hole that disappears into darkness. You can't see the bottom, but you know it's deep. Due to plenty of traffic over the past few years, the path is fairly evident. The rappel anchors are webbing wrapped around some rocks. Nice and sturdy. We rigged up the rope, shimmied into our harnesses and down we went, one after the other.

                             



The rappel was a solid 90 feet or so I'd say. The start seems pretty lame but as you get to the lip and start the free hanging rappel, things start getting good. When you reach the bottom, you look up and see about 3 or 4 holes in the arching roof with sunlight streaming in through them. It feels like a cathedral. The walls look flimsy, and when touched they crumble. I can only imagine what the "cathedral" looks like during a rain storm. The back of the chamber has a huge rock slide you have to scramble up to get out. Off to the right is a little cave that runs for 20-30 feet. The next 2 images were snagged off of Google Images since I failed to take pictures.

                          

The hike out isn't too terrible. I think it was under 1 mile. We got back to the car after exploring through the hoo-doos for a minute.
        

On our way out of the park, we did a little exploring and stopped by the Temple Mountain Wash Pictographs.


We headed back to the main road with one final destination in mind. We drove North until we hit I-70 then drove West all the way to Scipio then South in I-15 to the Meadow hot springs.

                         

 The pools were great. We soaked off the dust from Goblin Valley and even let the tropical fish in the 3rd pool nibble on our feet. Headed home after spending a few hours there and got into town just after dusk. Great little weekend trip.











Location: Goblin Valley Rd, Green River, UT 84525, USA

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