Goblin Valley

Even though Dave really wanted to hike to an arch on top of on of the canyons (skylight arch in Wild Horse), I talked him into paying $7 to spend our last hours of daylight checking out Goblin Valley.  It's a state park with a fancy camp site (toilets?  plumbing?  what's that?) and a mini-sized hiking area that seems really accessible for families.  We walked around within the goblins and enjoyed the soft ground in our chacos after a long day of hiking.

Exiting Little Wild Horse Canyon, near the intersection to Goblin Valley.  It was sprinkling on and off all day. 

Wait a minute, that goblin is Dave!

Unlike the national parks, where you can't walk off path for fear of hurting the cryptobacteria in the soil, in Goblin, we were free to range where we pleased.  In fact, I couldn't even find the path even though I honestly tried. **I just wanted to note after the Goblin being pushed over on purpose controversy, that this image is Dave just pretending to push the Goblin.  We are very careful park explorers and leave everything as we found it! 

Dave insisted on climbing this thing after he saw some little kid do it.  He tried it from two other sides before realizing you could do it pretty easily this way. 

Dave's view down to me from above. 

After not showering and hiking all day, I kind of resemble a goblin myself!

We're just about ready to leave and discover a really neat part of the park.  I guess that leaves room for exploring if we go back in the future.

 We drove through the campground and I noted that #11 looked mighty fine.  If you are in need of a fancy camping spot in Goblin Valley, you can make reservations online, which is probably why the place was booked solid. 

Dave, happy to be letting the heat out of the grill again so I can take a picture.  Burgers, red onion skewers, potatoes, and red peppers. 

We had a campfire Monday night since the winds had died down and the campgrounds were nearly empty.  Of course I was chastised for not bringing marshmallows.  Oops!  After the fire died down, we checked out the constellations and even saw a few shooting stars.

The next morning we broke down camp and drove to Moab, where for the second year in a row, I paid $6 for a shower.  It was well worth it to refresh myself and de-sand while Dave gassed up the car and packed for a night in the back country!

We headed southwest to Needles.  Needles is part of Canyonlands National Park.  The park has three entrances, Island in the Sky, Needles, and The Maze, each of which are separated by the Colorado or Green Rivers, with their confluence in the middle of all three areas of the park.  We did Needles in 2009, Island in the Sky in 2010 during a wind storm last year, and the Maze only seems accessible by people with intense, jacked up Jeeps (please, correct me if I'm wrong!).  Island in the Sky is very close to Moab, so is very popular, but not as popular as the drive-through national park, Arches.  Yes, Arches has some back country stuff, but any schmo with a car can see the majority of the park, which somehow ruins it for me.  We did it in a day in 2009.

We drove up to the Needles visitors' center and asked for a back country pass for the night...