Category: Campground

We arrived in Goblin Valley State Park in the afternoon of Thursday April 13, 2017 and setup in site 15 in a 25mph wind.

We were joined by a son and daughter-in-law and their three wonderful children. Grandchildren are amazing to watch and have fun with. When they become work the parents are usually close by! They camped next door to us in site 17 in their tent. It was very sunny, clear and warm when we arrived, but the wind and blowing sand made it interesting. Site 15 is pretty close to the site to the south, but livable. Each site has a tent space, a table, an awning, and a fire pit. The sites are very close together. In the future we would consider boondocking on the nearby BLM land.

Those 25mph winds were coming out of the South and rocked the trailer enough to wake us periodically during the night, but nothing that seemed dangerous.

On Friday we all hiked down into Goblin Valley and let the kids run wild around and on the hoodoos. They had a great time climbing and conquering these miniature summits. The floor of the valley has hundreds of these hoodoos and is surrounded by valley walls that are equally interesting to climb in and up. We made our way slowly across the valley and approached the wall on the far side. We climbed into and eventually up on this wall to see what lies on the far side. The kids did great on this hike. We likely covered 4 or 5 miles and they just kept going to the very end.

On Saturday we hiked one of the two slot canyons North of Goblin Valley State Park. I was amazed at the number of cars at the trailhead, but the hike itself wasn’t overly crowded. There were other people, but having witnessed the parking lot I was concerned that the day would be full of people taking away from the breathtaking beauty; my fears were unwarranted.

The beginning of the trail consists of a wide and dry river bed reminding us that this is nowhere to be during a rain storm. The aftermath of a thunderstorm must be spectacular, but obviously dangerous. While the stream bed is dry, water must not be too far below given the number of large trees enjoying it.

Further into the hike you come to the narrow bits of the canyon. In these places children and adults enjoyed building bridges and letting worthy souls pass. The sandstone surface makes climbing pretty easy and fun. Some places are narrow enough that with a backpack on it is difficult if not impossible to turn around. When you come across traffic headed in the “wrong” direction someone has to concede to go backward.

Nights	Total Nights	Miles	Total Miles
3	18	378	2436

We arrived in Kodachrome Basin State Park on Thursday evening November 10, 2016 about 6:30 pm and setup in the dark. Trailering makes this far easier and the nearly full moon made it great.

We stayed in site 15 that has nice views and is quite private from others. There are two nice tent spots in addition to the long pull-through.

On Friday we hiked in the state park on the Angels Palace trail that has many beautiful vistas. The hike is probably a mile and a half and very easy in most spots. A few view points are pretty narrow and add a bit of excitement to the walk.

For 8 or fewer people our site, 15, is great. Pull-through for the trailer, a couple of cars, and a couple of tent sites. For a group of 16 to 24 take sites 13 and 14. The group site is for 35 or less and we aren’t sure you can park a trailer in the parking lot.

It was fairly chilly at night this time of year requiring our furnace to run quite often. In addition, the sun is quite low in the sky and the solar panel wasn’t sufficient to charge the batteries the last day or two. A four hour run of our little generator got the batteries charged and us warm. I wouldn’t mind a second solar panel, but I may attempt to make the one we have adjustable so we can better point it at the sun.

Nights	Total Nights	Miles	Total Miles
3	15	506	2058

We camped for five nights at the Joe’s Valley Reservoir Campground. When we arrived in the evening of Tuesday October 19, 2016 there were very few others in the campground. We chose a back-in spot with a great view of the lake. 

While there we went to see the Little Grand Canyon of Utah.   

We also went down a really cool canyon with great scenery and ancient Native American art. 

In addition to beautiful scenery and the canyon art, we enjoyed some fun fishing at Potters Pond that is about 15 miles north of the campground in Upper Joe’s Valley. There is a small primitive campground there and two ponds. At this campground a single site for our trailer is site 11 and site 6 is better for a trailer and tents.

The East pond seems to have more fish, but they’re smaller. The West pond had 12-16 inch trout that were down deep. They seemed to like a blue and black balanced leech pattern. Preston caught his first trout on a fly rod at these ponds.

Nights	Total Nights	Miles	Total Miles
5	12	268	1552