Valley of the Goblins
After finishing our hike up Little Wild Horse Canyon, we headed back into Goblin Valley State Park, first, for a nap and dinner, then, for further exploration of our rocky, almost otherworldly surroundings. Although the weatherman and the park ranger both warned us about impending afternoon storms, the sky was perfectly blue and mostly clear - we couldn't have asked for better weather (especially in March in Utah, since it's currently snowing as I reminisce about the warmth and dryness of last weekend).
After dinner, we headed just down the road to the Valley of the Goblins - the primary reason for our being where we were that weekend. Goblin Valley (once called Mushroom Valley, a more descriptive name, I think) is, like Little Wild Horse Canyon, an amazing demonstration of the power of erosion left to its own devices for a long, long time. The softer bits of stone have been carried away by water and dust-laden wind, essentially exfoliating the landscape, smoothing its edges and revealing what would otherwise lie just below the surface. Movies set on Mars have been filmed here - perhaps most famously, Galaxy Quest - and it's no wonder why; walking around among the "goblins" will make you feel very, very far from any Earthly home (maybe especially for a bunch of kids from the East Coast).
Like we had been told many times by many different people, the Valley of the Goblins was definitely a place like no other. It can be hard for us to really appreciate places that are so different from what we typically recognize as beautiful (this is true for people and things and ideas and circumstances, too, huh?), but beautiful this place is. In its own way, it's both still and shifting; always new, yet timeless; refined, but still kind of raw. We could have missed out on experiencing it had we assumed it would offer us nothing more than dust in the desert; I'm glad we didn't.
Our campsite was right in the middle of a string of what looked like giant globs of mud, frozen in space and time, just until the next good, hard rain comes through and washes the whole landscape away. Lucky for us, I think the hills are more steadfast than they look, and luckier still, even if they aren't, it doesn't rain very often in this corner of the world, and Saturday was no exception. While our tinfoil dinners cooked, Drew and I roamed around our temporary backyard, just seeing what there was to see.
After dinner, we headed just down the road to the Valley of the Goblins - the primary reason for our being where we were that weekend. Goblin Valley (once called Mushroom Valley, a more descriptive name, I think) is, like Little Wild Horse Canyon, an amazing demonstration of the power of erosion left to its own devices for a long, long time. The softer bits of stone have been carried away by water and dust-laden wind, essentially exfoliating the landscape, smoothing its edges and revealing what would otherwise lie just below the surface. Movies set on Mars have been filmed here - perhaps most famously, Galaxy Quest - and it's no wonder why; walking around among the "goblins" will make you feel very, very far from any Earthly home (maybe especially for a bunch of kids from the East Coast).
As the sun started to set, we were validated in our decision to hike
Little Wild Horse Canyon during the day and save Goblin Valley for the
evening. I read numerous reviews that insisted it was best to see the
Valley of the Goblins in changing light - either with the sunrise or the
sunset - and we can now attest to the truth of that. The sunlight added
a lot of dimension to the "goblins", making each one stand out, whereas
at midday they might look simply like a continuous lumpy landscape. The sunset also provided a
great backlight for capturing the Valley of the Goblins (and us in the
valley) in silhouette.
Like we had been told many times by many different people, the Valley of the Goblins was definitely a place like no other. It can be hard for us to really appreciate places that are so different from what we typically recognize as beautiful (this is true for people and things and ideas and circumstances, too, huh?), but beautiful this place is. In its own way, it's both still and shifting; always new, yet timeless; refined, but still kind of raw. We could have missed out on experiencing it had we assumed it would offer us nothing more than dust in the desert; I'm glad we didn't.
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