Desert Adventures

Welcome to the first solo installment of Chloe and Ian’s summer adventure series 2022. I hope you like photos because there’s going to be a lot of them.

This adventure takes place in Goblin Valley State Park, in the red rock region of Southern Utah on the way to Moab (about 3.5 hrs away from our house).

Goblin Valley State Park is pretty unique in that you’re surrounded by huge red rocks while you camp. It gets pretty hot, though, with it being the desert and all. We’ve grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle where we’re freezing while we camp, so being hot and sweaty was definitely different. Don’t get me wrong, we 100% would go back to Goblin Valley, just in the winter when it’s not 100 degrees.

We made some delicious food, dealt with noisy neighbors, hiked in our first official slot canyon, got caught in a thunderstorm (not in the slot canyon, thankfully, cause that’s a recipe for disaster/death). We saw bats and cool bugs, but nothing deadly. We read a lot, hiked a lot, and had a lot of fun.

I know on my worst days, I and/or my sisters complain about how I got dragged out here to Pootah like a hostage. While politically and culturally, Pootah is a garbage state, it can be a beautiful place if you know where to go.

Here’s some photos to prove it.

We played storm chasers on our way to the park. Eventually, we did get caught in this storm, but it wasn’t as bad as it looks - more of a light rain with a fun touch of lightning here and there.

Campsite #19 featuring the vault toilet in the back

He’s just trying to relax, but I won’t stop taking his picture. Poor guy.

Okay, enough of that and onto the slot canyon hike! (Little Wild Horse and Bell Canyon Loop). All photo credit goes to Ian.

I guess it’s my turn to be incessantly photographed now.

This is why they call is a slot canyon. Thankfully, it wasn’t too wet or muddy from the previous few days’ afternoon storms. Could you imagine being stuck in here during a thunderstorm? No thank you. It did rain in the afternoon after we did this, though.

Watch out, Spider Man - Spider Chlo is coming for you.

We made it out of the slots and definitely missed the shade.

The mud dried like this. Texturally, it was similar to if you dropped little bit of water on polymer clay.

Not pictured are the dozens of little lizards we saw throughout the morning.

Speaking of mud… after we finished the hike we headed back to our campsite. At this point Ian had some casual heatstroke, and it had started to rain. Cue the wild afternoon desert thunderstorm. Here’s what our campsite looked like afterwards.

Shout out to our little REI tent for remarkably staying dry inside after the storm.

Recovered from the rain and the heatstroke, he’s ready to relax and read.

Feast your eyes on our camp breakfast feast.

Day two and we’re off to the Valley of the Goblins (see above) and the Goblin’s Lair (also referred to as the Chamber of the Basilisk for some unknown reason).

This rock is called the Three Sisters, but there’s definitely a fourth sister there on the left if you ask me.

The Goblin’s Lair is a big cave behind that big stack of rocks in the middle. We climbed up there but didn’t climb down the crevice to get into the cave.

The Valley of the Goblins. It’s a bunch of tiny hoodoos. There’s also bats here, so they’re really milking the spooky vibes with naming the park Goblin Valley State Park.

No matter where you go in Utah, there’s always going to be a huge mountain in the background.

You’ll probably think this is a dumb video, but check out this teeny any carrying around the big dead ant!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PTi6BobzTI4

I also found a huge beetle that was eating lichen off a rock near our campsite, which I found fascinating. I opted to follow it around with the binoculars (which also zoom in on things up close) instead of taking a video with my phone. You’ll just have to trust that I’m not that big of a nerd and that beetle was cool (I named him Merlin after the author of the book about fungi that I was reading - Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake).

Okay, I am a huge nerd but I’m fine with it, and you know you love me anyway ;)

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