We drove on down to Goblin Valley State Park. Its 50 miles southwest of Green River, Utah. The drive along highway 70 was beautiful. There are a number of pull-out spots along the way for the scenic views. Being that we were in the RV, we didn’t stop at any of those, but it was quite scenic none the less. We knew coming to this state park at this time of year was going to be a gamble weatherwise. Sure enough, we got here, and it was in the upper 90’s. There is no shade and no hookups in the campground. Good thing Diablo has a generator to run the A/C and that the campground doesn’t have any restrictions during the day for generator use.
It was even hotter the next morning, but we got out there to explore the park and ended up doing about 2 miles longer than we really wanted. But hey, we made it back and didn’t move for the rest of the day.
Beautiful Light in the Morning 
The 3 Sisters 
Reminded us of Barney, the dinosaur.
Finally, that night a storm came through and brought a little cooler weather.
We had clouds the next day and found ourselves at the Little Wild Horse Canyon. It’s a slot canyon right outside the park boundaries. There was still some water in certain areas, but we didn’t run into any water higher than our knees. It was a really cool hike and got so narrow in a couple of places, we had to take our backpacks off to get through. There is supposed to be a way to link up with the Bell Canyon trail and complete a loop. But after a while we weren’t really sure if we were still on the right trail, so we turned around and came back.
Sometimes it’s better not to think about what’s is in water. 
We had to scramble over this boulder to get through.
We still seemed to have some energy and went to find this other trail we had heard about, the Wild Horse Window Trail. Being that my boots were still wet, I opted for my new pair that I’ve been trying to break in. That was a mistake as we ended up hiking longer than planned and never did find the right trail.
The next morning, we had a number of clouds hanging about and wanted to explore the actual Goblin Valley area in the park. The park has 3 valleys filled with Goblins or hoodoos that you are free to wander and explore. It was pretty cool, and I don’t think we saw anyone else after getting out of the first valley.
Then we saw some Darwin Award Contestants trying to make their own trail.
You can see them here as they were trying to come down that cliff face.
So, that afternoon, we were back on our quest to find the elusive Wild Horse Window Trail. Our Shaka Guide auto tour got us to the trail head once we finally paid attention to the directions. Yay! It was supposed to be a moderate 2 mile out and back hike. After about 1/2 mile, we realized that we must have somehow missed the trail we wanted and ended up on another one. We finally found the right trail and made it out to the arch. The window in the arch was cool and yes once, you know where you’re going it was pretty straight-forward to get back to the car. A lot of the hiking for this trail is on white rock which does tend to make it hotter with the sun reflecting right back to you. Stick with us for more tips on how to increase your daily hiking mileage.
Made it to the trailhead. 
Doesn’t Look like anything from here.
Also, if you like watching the stars, this is an excellent place to come. Goblin Valley is an international dark sky park. We enjoyed looking at all the stars. A couple of nights we ended up having little to no cloud cover and the stars were amazing.
Our time in Goblin Valley was up and we drove on to Capitol Reef National Park. It’s a beautiful area with all the canyons. We had reservations inside the park at the Fruita Campground. I can see why this is a very popular campground. The Fruita area of the park is where there are a number of fruit orchards started in the late 1800’s by the Mormons. Since it wasn’t a far drive from Goblin Valley, we were able to set up in the early afternoon, which left the rest of the day to explore. We stopped at the visitor’s center where they have a movie about the geology of the area and about the Waterpocket Fold. The rangers are also there to answer questions about the park, what orchards are open for picking and good hikes to do. We had another Shaka Guide Tour for this park as well. So, we plugged in Shaka and set off to drive the park’s scenic drive. Shaka again was great at pointing things out along the way. Some of the off-shoot roads were closed due to flash flood concerns while we were there, but the entire paved section of the road was open.
The next day, we had decided to hike the Grand Wash trail. There is a section that they call the Narrows. The canyon Walls still don’t get any closer than about 20 feet apart, but the canyon walls are high and it’s still a beautiful trail. From the Grand Wash, you can also get to a couple of other trails So, I was going to hike the Cassidy Arch Trail and Will was going to continue for a bit and then come back and wait for me. If it started raining, he was going to head back to the car. Can you see where this is going? So, I got about half-way when it started raining and I had a view of the arch and the huge rock plateau and the storm clouds. So, I decided to turn around and head back down. Not seeing Will at the trailhead, I started hiking back to the car thinking Will had already started back. The couple that had been hiking in front of us was still at the trailhead. They told me that they had talked to Will, and they thought that he was probably at the Arch trailhead waiting for me. They offered to drive around to the other side where there is another entrance for the Grand Wash trail to see if they could find him. That road was still closed, but Amy and Mark came back to where I was waiting. They told me that the road was closed and gave me some snacks. So, after waiting about an hour, I decided that I better hike back the 2.5 miles and get him. We finally met up. He finally figured out that we probably missed each other and started on his way back to the car. I think, I ended up with close to 11 miles that day.
We wanted to get some supplies and see some more of the park. So, we headed to Torrey, UT, the closest town to the park. There are some great viewpoints along the way which, I managed to get Will to stop at.
The next morning, we headed off to hike the Capitol Gorge Trail. It was a nice hike down the road that had been closed because of flash flood concerns. (We had been getting nightly rain showers in the area.) We went all the way to the Tanks trail and saw the pioneer register where people had left their names when coming through the gorge.
Pioneer Register
Our trip was pretty much over as we had to start heading back home. We did a night in Cortez, Colorado at the Sundance RV Park for the night. It was a good location, and we were able to walk to restaurants and the grocery store. It was a little different being back in civilization.
Then we made an overnight stop in Abiquiu, New Mexico. We had gotten a spot at the Abiquiu Lake Dam, which has some really nice views overlooking the lake. It was also a very reasonable price, we got electric and water for $16/night. We have extended family that live in Abiquiu. They came out to the lake and joined us for dinner. And then convinced us to stay one more night and park Diablo in front of their house. All in all, it was another great trip.
