Is Goblin Valley Worth Visiting? A Field Guide to Utah's Valley of a Thousand Stone Goblins

Yes — Goblin Valley is worth the drive, and it’s one of the few parks in Utah where the whole point is to leave the trail and get lost on purpose. Spread across the high desert between Green River and Hanksville sits a basin packed with thousands of squat, mushroom-shaped sandstone pillars the locals call goblins. There are no fences around them and no marked path through the main field. You park, you walk down into it, and you’re free to wander three square miles of rock that looks like it belongs on another planet. For a lot of families, that freedom is the single best thing about the place.

Here’s what to know before you go, and why July asks a little more planning than April does.

What exactly are the goblins?

They’re hoodoos — pillars of soft rock protected by a harder cap that erodes more slowly than everything beneath it. The rock is Entrada Sandstone, laid down roughly 170 million years ago in the Jurassic, when this corner of Utah was a coastline where dunes met tidal flats. Over time, cracks called joints split the stone into blocks. Water and wind wore the exposed edges faster than the sheltered cores, and what’s left are these lumpy, top-heavy figures standing shoulder to shoulder by the thousand. The reddish-brown color comes from iron in the sandstone. The shapes come from time.

Stand among them at the right hour and it’s easy to see why every visitor reaches for the same words: goblins, mushrooms, melting chess pieces. The park runs with the goblin theme, but the geology is the real marvel. These are the same forces that carved Bryce and Arches, just working on a shorter, stubbier canvas.

The rule that makes Goblin Valley different: go off trail

Most of Utah’s marquee parks drill the same instruction into you — stay on the path, protect the crust, don’t cut switchbacks. Goblin Valley hands you the opposite. The main attraction, a free-roaming area of about three square miles split into three basins the park simply calls Valley 1, Valley 2, and Valley 3, has no designated trail. Rangers want you to wander. Kids can disappear into the maze and pop out somewhere else grinning. It’s a genuine choose-your-own-route landscape, which is rare on protected land and a big part of why the park sticks with people.

That freedom comes with one hard limit, and it’s worth saying plainly: look, photograph, climb the low ones if you must, but never push, pry, or topple a goblin. Which brings us to the day this quiet park landed on the international news.

The 2013 goblin that made headlines

In October 2013, visitors touring with a Boy Scout group filmed themselves deliberately shoving over one of the balanced goblins, cheering as the roughly 2,000-pound formation crashed down. The video was posted online, and the outrage was immediate and global. Those involved said the rock looked ready to fall and that they’d made the area safer. The state disagreed.

Two of the men were each initially charged with third-degree felony criminal mischief. In March 2014 they pleaded guilty to reduced misdemeanor charges and were sentenced to a year of probation with no jail time, plus court fees and a share of the cost to assess the damage. Both were removed from their Boy Scout leadership roles. A formation that took millions of years to balance was gone in a few seconds, and it isn’t coming back. That’s the reason the “don’t topple the goblins” rule isn’t a suggestion.

Goblin Valley is a certified Dark Sky Park

Stay past sunset and the park delivers a second show. In 2016, DarkSky International certified Goblin Valley as an International Dark Sky Park, recognizing how little light pollution reaches this stretch of the San Rafael Swell. On a clear, moonless night the Milky Way arches straight over the goblin field, and the pillars turn into silhouettes under a sky most city dwellers have never actually seen. If you can time a visit near a new moon, the after-dark hour here rivals the daylight one.

Wait — was this really the planet from Galaxy Quest?

By most accounts, yes. The 1999 sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest, with Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver, staged its alien-planet sequence — the one where a rock creature lurches to life among strange stone figures — in a landscape that looks unmistakably like this one, and Goblin Valley is widely credited as the location. Walk the basin and the resemblance sells itself. It has drawn filmmakers and photographers for decades precisely because it doesn’t look like anywhere on this planet.

The honest take: July is the hard month here

This is high desert with almost no shade, and summer is brutal. July highs routinely climb into the upper 90s and past 100°F, and the open sandstone radiates heat back at you. There’s no forest to duck under and no water in the goblin field. Peak-of-day summer is when the park is busiest and when it’s most likely to send someone home with heatstroke.

The fix is timing, not avoidance. Come at first light or in the last two hours before closing, when the low sun throws long shadows and the temperature is livable. Carry far more water than feels necessary — a gallon per person for a half-day is not overkill out here. Wear a hat, and check the forecast for flash-flood watches if you’re pairing the trip with a slot canyon. Spring and fall are genuinely the easier seasons; if you’re locked into summer, treat the middle of the day as off-limits and let the park be a dawn-and-dark experience.

By the numbers

• ~170 million years — the age of the Entrada Sandstone the goblins are carved from.
• August 24, 1964 — the day Goblin Valley was officially designated a state park.
• ~9,915 acres — the park’s size, after a 2019 expansion added 6,261 acres of surrounding federal land.
• 3 square miles — the free-roaming goblin field, with no marked trail.
• 2016 — the year it earned International Dark Sky Park status.
• 265 feet — the approximate height of Molly’s Castle, the big landmark butte on the valley’s edge.

Getting there

Goblin Valley sits off Highway 24 in the San Rafael Swell, roughly midway between the towns of Green River and Hanksville, about a half-day’s drive south of Salt Lake City and a couple of hours northwest of Moab. The park is open year-round with day-use and camping fees; the campground holds 24 sites plus two yurts. Summer weekends fill, so reserve ahead.

Make it a two-stop day: Little Wild Horse Canyon

If you’ve driven this far, don’t turn around after the goblins. About ten minutes away is Little Wild Horse Canyon, one of the most accessible slot canyons in Utah — a non-technical walk through narrows that pinch to shoulder-width in places, no ropes or gear required for the main stretch. It’s a favorite first slot for families and a natural pairing: the goblins in the cool of morning, the shaded canyon walls when the sun gets mean. Just heed any flash-flood warning, because narrow desert canyons and summer thunderstorms are a dangerous mix.