Unlike humans, Nature makes few mistakes. For the last piece of this post, I will shift from people’s slipups to Nature’s brilliant flukes as I cover our interactions with Goblin Valley’s remarkable figures of contorted stone.

After our investigation of Temple Mountain and short peek at Goblin Valley, my parents joined us for dinner at Duke’s in Hanksville. We followed that meal up with another at Duke’s the next morning. There ain’t nothing wrong with having chicken fried steak for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Duke’s is a solid place to eat if you find yourself near Hanksville. With our bellies bursting, we headed for the hills… well, valleys.

Goblin Valley State Park encompasses nearly 4,000 acres of some of the most bizarre terrain you’ll find on Epsilon Gorniar II. Unlike other parks, it contains only a handful of official trails. Otherwise, you are on your own to wander, climb, and explore. Unfortunately, it’s no longer an isolated secret. These days, Goblin Valley State Park often receives an intense influx of tourists between 11:00 and 3:00, at least on weekends. If there are no open parking spots, staff won’t let any more cars in until some become available. To avoid this, we arrived at 10:00 AM, a successful approach. If visiting, I’d recommend you do the same.

We scrambled around for almost eight hours, crawling into holes and over hoodoos. After poking around First Valley for a while, which is the valley closest to the parking lot, we wandered to the Second Valley of Goblins. It contained significantly less people. Back in its remoter regions, we saw no one. Second Valley looked a little different than First Valley. Probably due to its relative narrowness, water had etched deeper paths through its sandy bottom. The hoodoos seemed hewn of rougher stuff with thin jagged pieces of a lighter rock protruding regularly from their surfaces. Apparently, there is also a third valley, but we didn’t make it that far, which is too bad because I’m sure it was deserted.

My parents left in the late afternoon, and the rest of us hiked to the Goblin’s Lair and the Goblette’s Lair. The Goblin’s Lair is a natural 70-foot sandstone cavern that was formed when part of a slot canyon collapsed. One of its skylights can be used to rappel 90 feet to the cavity’s bottom. We didn’t enter that way, but the non-dangling entrance still tested my bouldering skills. Thankfully, Jason was there to assist my squat legs on those massive slabs. His lack of claustrophobia also came in handy. He took the kids exploring in a tiny tunnel that leads off the main chamber. They clambered through that channel for about 100 feet until he decided a tight spot requiring an army crawl was a great place to turn around.

The Goblette’s Lair, a much smaller hollow, we found far less impressive, but as it is only a short trek from Goblin’s, why not.

By the time we finished hitting all the gremlin hideouts, we were a little pooped. I’ll admit, my thighs were quite tender the next day. Plus, my knee was still displeased. As the proverb goes, “A sore body pairs perfectly with fine memories.” Man, those sagacious proverb writers really know their stuff.

From professors to goblins, our extended weekend was full of unusual characters, and most of them weren’t even family members. Humans’ idiocies were contrasted with Nature’s wondrous creations, curiosity was satisfied, and knees were dissatisfied. Outdoor outing extravaganza perfection!

My family arrived in the Goblin Valley area in a staggered fashion. After Jason and I concluded our short exploration of Bell’s end, we met up with some of them and took a trip to the temple.

The group checked out the Temple Mountain Wash Pictograph Panel in route to Temple Mountain. This panel was originally more than eight feet tall and over a hundred feet long. It includes pictographs in both Fremont and Barrier Canyon Style making sections of it over 1000 years old. So, naturally, some numbskull decided to use it for shooting practice. The bullet marks scarring sections of its surface were a testament to the irresponsible stupidity of humans, but they weren’t the only reminders we received that afternoon.

At 1,200 feet, Temple Mountain is the highest point in the San Rafael Reef, the eastern edge of the San Rafael Swell. It has two peaks divided by a saddle. While the mountain is beautiful, its most intriguing components don’t lie above but beneath.

Miners sought out vanadium, radium, and uranium at Temple Mountain beginning in 1914. Extraction continued off and on until the 1920s. Then, with the nuclear boom during the Cold War, mining recommenced and escalated. Between 1948 and 1956, the Temple Mountain area produced 261,000 tons of uranium ore containing 1,287,000 pounds of triuranium octoxide, AKA yellowcake, and 3,799,000 pounds of vanadium pentoxide. Mining decreased after 1956 but continued until at least the mid-sixties.

What became of those mines and their associated shafts? Apparently, nothing. The Utah DNR has closed 203 mine openings at Temple Mountain in the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program since 2002. Even with those efforts, some cavities clearly remain as we came upon an unmarked shaft that dropped about 30 feet. We also encountered one intact steel tower that appeared to be patiently awaiting a reopening as it slowly deteriorated. It stood over an exposed shaft with only sparse bars to prevent a human from stumbling in. We dropped a rock down, and it took 2.5 seconds to hit the bottom. That’s a fall of about 100 feet if my calculations are accurate.

Over the course of nearly three and a half hours, we only made it about four miles because we stopped to examine so many things. We were amazed how much mining equipment and miner’s junk were just left to rot and rust. Besides headframes and other mining standards, we came across ovens, fridges, mattress springs, building foundations, vehicles, shoes, piles of oxidized cans, and even tubes of electrical paste. Since these leftovers were more than 50 years old, they held historical interest and captured our curiosity. However, it was impossible to ignore the carelessness involved. Obviously, mining companies abruptly departed leaving hazardous holes perforating the ground and unsightly scrap everywhere. Sometimes I’m disgusted by my species!

Afterward, we stopped by Goblin Valley State Park and let the kids run around in hollows and on hoodoos for about an hour. It was only a preview of what they would be enjoying the next day. Even with that sampling, no cranny or alcove was repeated at any point during our visit. In Goblin Valley, it’s difficult to return to a precise spot even when you aim to.

The final day of our outing was all about exploring Goblin Valley’s misshapen rock stubs and spacious caverns that were certainly no mistakes of Nature. I will cover these perfect oddities next time.