Spring Break 2016 Goblin Valley

Goblin Valley was beautiful and a ton of fun and really cool and crazy dusty. We went camping with three other families in our ward: the Dastrups, Howletts, and Wrights. Drew was our tour guide as we caravaned together to the campsite.  

 On the way there we took a detour to go rock hounding. The kids and everyone had a lot of fun finding a million cool rocks. If Drew were here he would tell us what kind of rocks they were, but I can't remember. It brought back a lot of memories of my dad and his cool rock collection and the occasional rock show we would go to.

While everyone else was collecting rocks, sweet Kaitlin was collecting flowers to give to mommy. It was super cute.

Right next to our campsite was this huge hill made of really soft dirt. Imagine walking on the sand at the beach and you'll get the idea. The kids climbed up and down it over and over again. There were literally cups of dirt in their shoes. They convinced me to climb up and look at some cool rocks at the top of the hill and I have never had such a good calf and glutes workout in my life.

Dirt face!

The next day we went to Goblin Valley to see the hoodoos and climb through some cool caves. There were no bathrooms at the campsite so we naturally took advantage of the bathrooms at the park. The line was pretty long.

Logan. Anya, Emma, Eliza, Britta, Annie, Sierra, Malea, and Evalene

We went to one part of the valley that had a cool cave with a spot to chimney climb up through it. Which means you climb up the cave instead of through it. All of the kids did it including Brandon. We were super proud of them because some parts were a little tricky but they were brave anyway. Emma got really scared and it took her a while to gather the courage to climb up. We were proud of her for conquering her fears. Brandon went up with Mike and he was pretty dauntless.

Anya climbed up the rocks and played hide and seek.

We hiked up to a cool cave that had some beautiful sky lights at the top. The cave was so deep and there was a cool side tunnel that the kids and some of the adults explored. The thing the kids remembered the most was a doll head shoved into one of the crevices of the cave. They all thought it was pretty creepy.

Looking down into the cave. Those dots at the bottom are people.

Looking part way up on the climb down.

Checking out the weird doll head. 

Looking straight up.

Exploring a side tunnel.

It got pretty windy the last day we were there. 

When we got home, everything was so dirty that I tried rinsing it all before I put it in the washing machine. It was one muddy bucket of water by the time I was done.