Utah continues to amaze me with her diversity and beauty! Neither me or Tim had ever been to Goblin Valley and after doing a little research, it seemed like the perfect day trip. We left the house early, but by the time we arrived there was a line of about 30 cars waiting to get in. Because of Covid, they were limiting the amount of people in the park, so once they were full, they would only let a car in once another left. We had known that we would likely have to wait so it really wasn't a big deal. We ate our packed lunch and the kids explored a little - mostly it was just nice to sit and enjoy the beautiful views.
Once we entered the park, we hiked down into the Valley of Goblins and were immediately in awe - there were hoodoos and rock formations for as far as we could see. So many different shapes and creations, it is one of the most amazing places I have ever seen. The park allows you to climb on the formations so we spent the next few hours hiking around the valley and letting the kids climb. It was fun to watch their imaginations at work as they talked about the hoodoos. This stage with Luke and Ruby is really the best, we have the best time adventuring together.
The Three Sisters
Our last view as we drove out of Goblin Valley
After leaving Goblin Valley, we drove up the road about 10 minutes to find Little Wildhorse Canyon for more hiking. Our friend suggested we go there if the wait was too long for Goblin Valley and once we started looking at pictures we knew we wanted to go. The hike starts off in wide open riverbed that was dry and full of sand that looked like it belonged at the beach.
The riverbed was pretty, but after a mile or so the path entered into a canyon and then the scenery really became impressive. There were lots of areas where we had to climb the slick rock, and it was fun to scramble up and over. Eventually the canyon really started to narrow, enough that we had to turn sideways to skinny through. After hiking through the slots for a little bit, we decided that we should probably turn around and head back. The kids were tired and we knew we still had to get back to the car. Also, there have been some recent tragedies with flash floods in the same canyon, and Tim and I couldn't get those stories out of our minds. We hadn't looked at any weather reports and I started to feel super unprepared to be hiking in this slot canyon. So, we didn't quite make it to the end of the canyon, but we saw enough to know that it was really spectacular.
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