Goblin’s & Goblette’s Lairs (aka cool caves)

Published by

Caitlyn

on

June 1, 2025

After having a super early morning start in Moab and walking a few miles combined between Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, we were starting to feel pretty wiped out. We made the two hour drive to Goblin Valley State Park and hoped to get as much crossed off of our wishlist as possible before we lost daylight.

On our way there, I took a random side quest off the highway for gas and we stumbled across this gem. I looooove alien-themed road trip things.

It reminded me so much of when we did the Extraterrestrial Highway roadtrip in Nevada last winter. I have no idea why all of these places are so obsessed with jerky haha.

Now entering: Goblin Valley State Park

Online, I’d read somewhere that the visitor center closes at 7pm? But when we were there in person, we were the very last people to go inside before they closed it at 5pm, the time all other park’s visitors centers close. We got super lucky, I would’ve been bummed if I couldn’t have gotten a sticker for my growing hoard.

We drove in to the park and headed to the trailhead for Valley of the Goblins which would be our home base for both things we wanted to do, the first being a 2.5 mile roundtrip to the Goblin’s Lair. At the visitor center’s tiny parking lot, there’s a sign saying it’s the trailhead for the Goblin’s Lair. You can do that too, but I liked our way better and it leaves you car in a way more centralized place.

Three Sisters

From the parking lot and on the beginning of this trail, you get a pretty sweet view of the Three Sisters. You can practically walk up to the base of them if you really wanted to.

You know I gotta pay homage to eeevery vault toilet.

A sandy and winding trail leads down into a valley and snakes to the right, bringing you to the base of the Three Sisters and to some really awesome overlooks.

I’d never heard of Goblette’s Lair before, so I was pretty excited to check that out too once I saw it on the sign.

I had been worried that we arrived too late in the day here, but I actually ended up being so grateful because Molly’s Castle provided so much shade for us and kept us from baking in the hot sun. If we’d come any earlier, the rays would have been so harsh (and they would have photobombed all of my pictures haha). The morning time would be good too I guess, before the day really heats up. This is such a hot part of Utah.

Molly’s Castle

Molly’s Castle! As soon as we made this turn, we stayed surrounded by these sandstone sand castles.

Goblin’s Lair cave

When I saw that squiggly trail disappear into the pile of rocks, that’s when I realized that we were gonna have to do some rock scrambling to get into this cave. Our journey uphill to the mouth of the cave can’t adequately be done justice by photo, but it was *not* the most fun I’ve ever had haha. There were a few people up there when we arrived, and a couple with their toddler who’d actually descended into the cave from the top. Crazy.

Ike’s view vs. my view. Biiiiig ol’ rock pile.

Right before this trip I somehow pulled my intercostal muscle on the right side, so doing anything that stretched my rib cage area was super painful. Fun to do right before a 10-day non-stop hiking trip, right? We still had half the trip left by this point so I didn’t want to do too much to make it worse.

At that the bottom of this cave is a hole at the bottom. The couple with their toddler climbed through that hole, under God knows where, and we saw them emerge waaay later when we were leaving the Goblette’s Lair. They were total badasses.

Climbing on unsteady boulders is not my fav, so I’m sure you can imagine how psyched I was when we got to the fork in the road leading to the Goblette’s Lair and it was Another Huge Rock Pile.

Sike, it was fun. But my little ankles. Isn’t that view looking out from the Goblin’s Lair over the sunsetting desert so beautiful?

Goblette’s Lair cave

I’m not the biggest fan of the word “goblette,” but hey I guess we’re rollin with it.

This cave was a little less steep so I climbed down to check it out. I’m glad I did because I reeealllyy like that picture of me down in it.

The mooooon.

And one last look at the Three Sisters before heading up to the parking lot. We were racing daylight but luckily what we cared about was just on the other side of where we parked. We were sooo excited to hang out in the Valley of the Goblins next.