Sunset at Valley of the Goblins

Published by

Caitlyn

on

June 1, 2025

We arrived at Goblin Valley State Park by 5pm, hung out on the Goblin’s + Goblette’s Lairs trail for a couple hours, and finally descended the stairs into the Valley of the Goblins by 7pm.

Last time we were adventuring in the desert, it was mid-January and the sun set around 5pm. It was so nice to be able to take advantage of those extra hours of light and that alone allowed us to get so much accomplished on this trip.

Hi. 🙂

I love when we exchange photo taking with strangers and I already know it’s gonna end up on this year’s Christmas card. Like, yeessss.

This place technically does have a “trail” that you can follow, but we saw no point in that when we could just use it as our own personal jungle gym. You get to walk around aimlessly and have fun. This one’s called “Valley #1” so I guess that means there are others? I can’t wait to come back and explore those too.

Scoping out each individual hoodoo is so much fun, they each totally have their own personalities. They’re like little Super Mario gumbas.

Ike loooovvees a good rocky playground. It was really fun to separate and try to find each other.

It was really hard to pull ourselves out of this valley, but luckily we were able to gather ourselves back at the car by 8pm.

At the trailhead for Valley of the Goblins, there’s a big ol’ covered pavillion with benches and a bunch of interpretive signs. Two talk about how this place used to be underwater, and the other talks about how a bunch of movies have been filmed here.

1. “Seafront Property. Millions of years, tons of pressure and relentless erosion create a bizarre landscape. Forget the baled, hot desert where you not stand. Instead, rewind 170 million years to the Jurassic Period and you would be on seafront property! During this period, Goblin Valley was a muddy tidal flat along an inland sea. The waves of the tidal flat deposited sand, silt, and clay. With pressure and time, the sediment became the Goblin-forming Entrada formation.”

2, “Imagine the Jurassic Period 140 to 170 million years ago. This area was on the edge of a shallow inland sea. Tidal deposits of sand, silt, and clay sediments were left here. Over millions of years, these distinct layers hardened to become the sandstone, siltstone, and shale layers of the Entrada Sandstone formation. The Entrada can be seen here and in many area across southern Utah, including Arches National Park where sandstone is harder. Why are there so many goblins here and not in a large concentration anywhere else? While this area was a tidal flat, the area of Arches National Park was dry and covered in sand dunes. The resulting rocks determined the effects of wind and water erosion. The alternating layers of hard sandstone and soft siltstone created goblins here, and the hard stone left from ancient sand dunes created the fins and arches in Arches National Park.”

3. “Utah Film Trail: Galaxy Quest, 1999. The otherworldly rock formations at Goblin Valley State Park seem like they come from an alien planet, making it the perfect backdrop for movies. The sandstone hoodoos were famously used as the foundation for the Rock Monster in the campy sci-fi film, Galaxy Quest, starring Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver. Goblin Valley has also been featured in other productions, including Rubin and Ed (1991), City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold (1994), and The Tree of Life (2011).”

We stayed at the Whispering Sands in Hanksville, Utah and we loooved it. It was about 45 minutes-ish from the trailhead parking lot for Valley of Goblins, but maybe less if I wasn’t doing it in the pitch blackness of the Utah desert.

The staff was really friendly and the room itself was huge, bed was so comfy, and the bathroom was like a mini spa. It felt sooo good to sit down in a tub after so many hours of sweating our butts off. Our next door hotel neighbor was this really chill man from Texas who was basically doing the trip we were, but in reverse. And on his awesome motorcycle.

In the morning, we quickly stopped for gas at this infamous place. We got there a few minutes before they opened so didn’t venture inside, but it was cool to see in person nonetheless.