Spring 2025 Utah, 4.16.25 - 5.14.25, Part 13, Goblin Valley State Park, Valley of the Goblins 1, Colonnade Arch, light painting in Goblin Valley

After my hike to The Goblin’s Lair, we relaxed for the afternoon. After dinner we drove into Goblin Valley State Park to wander around in the hoodoos. The timing of this entire trip to Utah was geared around the fact that there would be a full moon while we were here. I was really hoping to get an opportunity to go down into the hoodoos at night and photograph the hoodoos lit up by the moonlight. This first visit was to scope out where some good places might be to shoot at night. From the parking lot you can sort of survey the entire Valley of the Goblins 1 from above and then hike down into the hoodoos. I really liked the looks of the northern end of this valley. The hoodoos in the middle section were more clumped together and in the northern part they were more spread out with lots of great individual hoodoos. There were also fewer people so Bridgit and I walked down a short trail directly into the northern part of the valley. As we wandered around, the light in the evening was fantastic. An almost full moon rose during our wander and we had a great time taking photos and just roaming around the valley. I found a particular group of hoodoos I really thought would make a good composition for a night shot and marked a waypoint on my Gaia app. We stayed down there until almost dusk and then headed back to camp.

The next morning was a Saturday and we wanted to do something where there wouldn’t be a lot of people around. We left at ten to six (that took care of 95% right there!) and drove out to US 24. Turning south, we only went a mile or so and then turned east onto the Lower San Rafael Road. This really conjured up some memories for me. This is the road that goes a long, long way out to the Hans Flat Ranger Station which is the entrance to the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park. This extremely remote area is where we went on our epic trip in 1990. I hadn’t been back since and as we drove my thoughts kept drifting back to what an incredible trip that was.

The reason for such an early start was due to Gary giving yet another tip about a large dune field along the way right off the road. I wanted to be there around sunup to photograph the dunes. It was further out than I expected, but we arrived at the dune field just nine minutes after sunrise which was great timing. There was one other guy there already shooting the dunes but absolutely no one else around.

The dunes were fantastic. The early morning light cast wonderful shadows on the west side of the dunes while the sunlit east sides were drenched in brilliant orange light. As if by plan, the Henry Mountains just happened to create a perfect backdrop. I spent about a half hour shooting from the road and wandering down into the dunes before we continued our journey to the hike of the day.

The dune field was a real treat (thank you Gary!) but we had more to do. As we continued east we eventually passed by the turnoff to Hans Flat and the Maze. A bit further we also got to the turnoff for Horseshoe Canyon. Horseshoe Canyon is a outlier sector of Canyonlands National Park. It is famous for The Great Gallery, one of the finest walls of pictographs and petroglyphs in North America. The only sane route to get there is the turnoff to the northern end of the canyon where you must park and hike down into the canyon. Back in 1990, there was a second option which was an incredibly dicey road coming in from the south that actually dropped down into the bottom of the canyon. This is the route we took and had a wonderful camp along a flowing creek with big cottonwoods for shade and huge canyon walls covered in desert varnish all around us.

**This was me driving my old 4Runner down into Horseshoe Canyon in 1990. That road washed out some years ago and they closed it permanently.**

But back to our story. A few miles past the turnoff to Horseshoe Canyon we came to a side road called Keg Knoll Road. Turning right, we followed this road 4.8 miles to its end on a big area of slickrock marked with a few stones. Keep in mind, we are now way out in the middle of nowhere. This was the trailhead for Colonnade Arch.

We followed cairns and an old road bed out along a plateau. To our right was Two Mile Canyon but we weren’t close enough to the rim to see it yet. After about a mile the cairns led us down several levels of slickrock until we reached the rim of the canyon. From there we descended some fairly steep angled slickrock, rounded a corner and traversed over to Colonnade Arch. This arch is also called Five Hole Arch due to having five separate holes in this big rock formation.

From up inside the arch we were looking through the holes down into the Green River where it flows through Labyrinth Canyon. Looking across the river, Mineral Bottom along the White Rim Trail was just a mile or two south of where we were.

**Labyrinth Canyon from inside Colonnade Arch**

**The Green River and Labyrinth Canyon from inside Colonnade Arch**

**A branch of Two Mile Canyon leading into Labyrinth Canyon**

**Two Mile Canyon and Labyrinth Canyon**

**Love those wilderness areas! (Bridgit photo)**

We hung out at Colonnade Arch for over an hour and then made our way back to the Jeep. The whole hike was only three miles round trip but the solitude was delicious! I guess if you’re willing to drive ninety-four miles round trip on washboard dirt roads, perfect solitude is a just reward.

After dinner I had a hunch that the moon would rise over Temple Mountain so I hopped in the Jeep and drove up the Temple Mountain Road. I can use my Peakfinder app to show me where in relationship to what I’m looking at the moon or sun will rise or set. I found a nice overlook with a great view of Temple Mountain but the moon wasn’t aligned with the mountain. I tried driving quite a bit further but I just couldn’t get it to line up anywhere along the road. I ended up just hanging out watching the sun set on Temple Mountain and that was pretty nice too.

By nine-thirty night had fallen and no more sunlight remained in the sky. We packed up my camera gear, tripod, water, jackets and headlamps and headed into Goblin Valley State Park. It turned out that the moon (which would be full two nights later) was so bright that we could see just fine without headlamps. It was also so comfortably warm we were in t-shirts and shorts with no need for jackets.

It was party central down in the goblins. We could see lots of people roaming around and several large groups whooping it up and making a lot of noise but thankfully they were all way over in the south end of Valley of the Goblins 1. We stayed in the northern section and there was no one out there at all. I set up my tripod and after playing around with a few settings, I ended up finding a sweet spot at ISO 400 with an f-stop of 5.6 shooting thirty second exposures. Of course I played around with that and did a decent amount of bracketing, but that was my base setting and it worked pretty well. I loved the color of the goblins at those settings and with the long exposures, even the stars showed up in the shots even though the moon was so bright we couldn’t really see the stars with the naked eye.

After shooting several different locations we got creative. I would set up a shot with the tripod. Bridgit would wave a colored flashlight back and forth across the face of the goblins and I would start my timed thirty second exposure. We had already learned in the past that about five seconds of light painting was enough to light up the goblins perfectly. Too long and the colors were actually too bright. Subtle shades of color seemed to work the best.

**Moonlit goblins. This might be my favorite.**

We had so much fun out there! We were like little kids, high-fiving when we looked at a good shot on the little LCD screen of the camera. It was so warm and light and relatively early (at least for us old folks!). The whole photo session was just a blast and a half.

Spring 2025 Utah, 4.16.25 - 5.14.25, Part 13, Goblin Valley State Park, Valley of the Goblins 1, Colonnade Arch, light painting in Goblin Valley

Spring 2025 Utah, 4.16.25 - 5.14.25, Part 12, Goblin Valley, Reds Canyon Overlook, Little Wild Horse Canyon, The Goblin’s Lair

Spring 2025 Utah, 4.16.25 - 5.14.25, Part 14, Goblin Valley State Park, Crack Canyon