When you sleep in a yurt surrounded by crumbling rock formations and wake up to find a sign pointing to Goblin’s Lair, it’s difficult not to wander down that path. It’s also really tough to find a place name Goblin Lair if you’re not looking for a tiny cave and huge hole in the ground requiring significant skill and equipment. And so started Day 5 with a two hour rambling hike through Goblin Valley searching for cairns.
Luckily for us, the rambling was quite nice (save for a lost hiking shirt) and provided for great views, tons of tracks, weird plants and a sandy scramble through Carmel Canyon. Now some fun facts about Goblin:
- Carmel Canyon floods after a night of rain meaning you’re going to have to divert your path at the end and use drainage pipes to climb out.
- Basic toilets are available near the trailhead. Approximately 3,000 flies live in each one. Plan accordingly.
- It takes no less than 24 hours to remove sand from an iPhone case.
Having wrapped up an adventurous morning, we jumped in the car for a quick drive to Arches. Very quickly we realized that a few days without showers or good sleep can be very wearing and result in certain people named Chad acting like an ass. Kudos to Stacy for dealing with me until we stumbled upon an Arby’s where emotional eating helped to quell my attitude.
The road to Arches was a nice change of pace after several days of stressful driving - it’s straight, fast, provides modern amenities and gives connectivity for the first time in (*gasp!*) over two days! It also provides multiple places to pull over and view dinosaur tracks! While they weren’t quite a defined as I’d expect after several million years, they were clearly giggle worthy tracks.
From the dinosaur tracks it was off to a quick hike to the Corona and Bowtie arches. While not actually in the park, this is considered the “must hike” trail around Moab and it’s easy to see why. The trail gets you sweating, but is still easy enough that a 6 year can make it to the end. You get to cross train tracks, use chains for support, climb a ladder, see a HUGE collection of cairns and finally get blown away by Corona arch. Corona initially blends in with the background, but opened up to bright blue skies as we got closer, and was large enough that grabbing a photo with someone smiling and waving makes them seem like a discolored pixel. All in all, a great 3 mile hike!
In an attempt to avoid continued grumpiness, we toned down the day a bit more by scrapping Canyonlands and opting instead for the Arches scenic drive and relaxing night in Moab. The scenic drive is everything you’d hope for - easy to follow, amazing sights that are difficult to capture on camera, quick walks to a ton of rocks eroded away to shapes slightly resembling man made creations, and overall entirely enjoyable. Being a Tuesday afternoon, we weren’t hit by too much traffic, so it was also quick!
We finally wrapped up the day with a super dose of delicious Mexican, Ice Cream and ramble around a nice Moab downtown. While I’m a big fan of one day stays in a location, it’s easy to see how the many shops, restaurants, trails and adventure outfitters could make several days or even a week entirely enjoyable and exciting.
Up next: Monument Valley
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