Field Report: Goblin Valley
A missive from the backroads of the West
It’s a short weekend trip, just one night. The nanny needed the day off, so we thought we would make the most of it and go somewhere fun and away from the I-15 sprawl. I pitch Goblin Valley, somewhere my wife and I have been, but never with our young kids. It is supposed to be warm and sunny down there, but not roasting.
We pack the car and are on the road by mid morning. I had just swapped out the winter tires, so I’m apprehensive as it snowed overnight and the temperature at Soldier Summit is in the teens. We meet some flurries, but we make it up and through the low clouds and into mostly clear skies. The road winds down through canyon coal country into Price. After that, there is next to nothing: Wellington looks like a speed trap masquerading as a dying town, Woodside is an abandoned gas station with the word “open” neatly painted on the side and a guy selling beef jerky out of a camper in the parking lot. I’m tempted by the jerky, but the kids have fallen asleep and nothing tastes as good as silence sounds.
To the east are the book cliffs, casting heavy shadows across the tendrils of storm-carved creek beds that wither, chalky white. Power lines run at a respectful distance, bobbing rhythmically.
So much of the beauty of the desolate West is general rather than particular: the vastness of scale, repeated forms. Just like it takes hundreds of acres of desert rangeland to support a modest herd of cattle, so does a single picturesque view require miles of purple mesas and distant snow-stained peaks diluted across the horizon. This is not to say that there are no enchanted spring-fed glades or remnants of lost civilizations clinging to the sandstone; it’s just that such places are a few miles off of roads to nowhere and are known mostly to the dead.
A short jog on I-70 sends us west and affords a view of the otherworldly San Rafael Reef. Before we enter the interstate’s cut in the jutting rocks, we exit and are southbound again.
The massive slabs of the reef stab heavenward, slanting west like a row of toppled tombstones in a ghost town cemetery. The spaces in between are narrow canyons with names like black dragon, petroglyph, farnsworth, little wildhorse, bell, ding, dang. Somewhere in a county museum there are yellowing photocopies of typewriter-transcribed journal entries that recount the first time a white man set foot in each: a rancher’s son follows a jackrabbit up a draw, a miner is lost and dying of thirst.
It’s still mostly cloudy as we arrive at Goblin Valley in the early afternoon. There’s plenty of parking in the lot that overlooks the orange valley studded with bulbous rock formations, top heavy and teetering on foundations of mud. The traces of flash floods fan out through the amphitheater. We walk down the railroad tie staircase to the valley floor, then the kids take off.
One of the virtues of the high-trust Utah State Park system is that many areas are open to exploration. Someday they’ll build a boardwalk through the hoodoos, departure from which will be met with scorn and a citation from a ranger-ess, arms akimbo. But for now you can run and climb and get lost, and no one will tell you to stay between the lines.
The sun comes out. We wander around, I take pictures, we see two riders guiding their horses through the rocks. Scrambling through tunnels, my preschooler’s imagination works overtime, inventing dragons and boobytraps and clues for the location of hidden treasure.
We hike back to the car from the far side of the valley, and I teach the kids to find a landmark to navigate by. The toddler almost makes it, but runs out of steam with a quarter mile to go.
The clouds over the swell are dark, and shifting curtains drop down to the distant horizon.
“Rain or snow?” I ask my wife.
“Snow.”
There’s live music at Duke’s Slickrock Grill tonight. I see the flier on the counter at the motel as I check in. It features a picture of a smiling silver-haired man in a cowboy hat and the caption promises a mix of rock, country, and more.
The manager hands me my room key and WiFi password and catches me looking at the paper.
“He comes up every weekend during the season. A regular rockstar.” He laughs. “At least he would say so.”
We discuss the virtues of the three restaurants in town. Aside from the music, Duke’s is the nicest, and the priciest: steaks, brisket, Utah trout. The Outlaw’s Roost, perched on a hill adjacent to one with a convenience store carved into it, serves “burritos and tacos and stuff like that, but with really fresh ingredients.” Last is Stan’s Burger Shak, which serves a good burger along with “really big shakes and just about any flavor you can think of.”
The shakes cinch it for the wife and me, and once we unload the car we reload the kids and head over for dinner.
Stan’s Burger Shak is connected to the Silver Eagle gas station: last stop for food or fuel until the Shirt Tail Junction Store 120 miles away in Blanding. The dining area is spacious, ready to accommodate van loads of teens from outdoor adventure youth ministries. I get the Duke burger (I’m starting to think he’s a big deal around here) that comes loaded with 2 quarter-pound patties, cheese, onion rings, bbq sauce, and jalapeños. It satisfies. So do the shakes that are really just soft serve with mix ins; the kids in the kitchen don’t even bother serving them with straws.
While my wife finishes up her meal in peace, I take the kids to browse the convenience store that has more souvenirs than anything else. I think it’s brave to carry so much merchandise with “Hanksville” boldly emblazoned across the front, but it must sell. There are Navajo-looking baskets for sale (make in Pakistan) and wooden carvings of wolves and bison (made in Mexico). A spinning glass case shows off a selection of antler-handled knives. From China, I imagine.
A storm is rolling through as the sun sets. Rain rattles on the steel roof of our mini cabin.
I’d like to go listen to the music at Duke’s, but the kids are going down to bed. Hemingway would go. But I am no Hemingway. Neither in writing skill nor in the ability to leave my young kids alone in a car while I hang out at a bar for a couple hours. So I’ll read my kids their bedtime story and maybe later I’ll sit at the little table on the porch outside our room and write.
It’s supposed to be clear tomorrow; we’ll see how far the youngest can make it up a slot canyon before rebelling. Then we’ll hit the road again with the sun shining on the other shoulder.
[Photo credits: Aldo Jonsson]
You wrote this up so well now I want to visit the next time I am in Utah.