Good4Utah Road Tour makes final stop at one of the most unique parks in Utah

EMERY COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) — The Good4Utah Road Tour made its final stop today in Emery County — at perhaps the most unique park in the Beehive State.

Goblin Valley State Park is an outdoor playground for all ages.

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For decades, Goblin Valley State Park has allowed folks to get in sync with the sandstone and drop in on a little adventure.

The park offers what feels like an out-of-this-world experience. Some say the valley of the goblins mimics the surface of Mars.

Jeff Gardner, of Mapleton, said he sees the park as a playground for kids.

“They can run around, touch whatever they want, and get dirty. They’ve been cooped up in the house for too long and they needed to run around,” he said.

Laura Doncouse, of Layton, agreed, saying “they can run and hide and tag and all of the amazing things, and you don’t have to worry — it is just the perfect place.”

The park envelops about 10,000 acres. The sandstone hoodoos started forming about 170 million years ago — originally dubbed by the discoverer “the mushroom valley” in the 1920s.

Park Manager Drew Sprafke said the discoverer came back with a photographer in the 1940s. That photographer allegedly said the grotesque shape looked like goblins, and the name has stuck ever since.

Goblin Valley became a park in 1964 and has expanded to include camping, yurts, trails, and mountain biking — but perhaps the biggest draw for thrill seekers is the crash course in canyoneering.

“We have over 100 different canyons in this area surrounding Goblin Valley State Park. It’s one of the very best locations in the world for canyoneering,” Get in the Wild Adventures owner Christopher Hagedorn said.

Canyoneering includes a two mile hike through a sandstone valley, scrambling the canyon of the goblins, then dropping though a small hole into the 150-foot wide base of the canyon.

“As we go down the repel, you look around, you’re just captivated by this red and orange sandstone and looking up the beautiful skylights with the beams of sun shining down and illuminating this chamber,” Hagedorn said of the experience.

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