Goblin Valley & Little Wild Horse Canyon

Let's just take a minute to appreciate those blue skies--man!! So beautiful and so appreciated, I don't think I saw the sun again in Indiana until last week. The beauty in southern Utah is unreal. 

We detoured on our way home past a couple of fun spots--first up was Goblin Valley!


We had a blast climbing around and exploring all the hoodoos. 



After an hour or so we drove a couple miles down the road to our next stop--Little Wild Horse Canyon! We'd wanted to do more slot canyons when we were in southern Utah over spring break, but didn't have the time to detour over, so we were all super excited to check this out (except Matthew, who laid down in the parking lot and yelled about how much he hated hiking). 

Neil ended up carrying Matthew, so everyone else thought it would be fun to get a ride too (I was actually impressed with how far they went like this!). 

Once we got into the canyon little Grumplestiltskin decided he would, in fact, walk on his own. 

Gosh this is just such a beautiful place!

The kids ran along the rocks for awhile until it really started narrowing...

Every single bit of rock was so beautiful. 

The former geology TA in me was in heaven! (We used to go on field trips to the San Rafael Swell in college but I'd never been to this particular canyon before.) 

Here's your reminder to always check the weather at the ranger station before you head into a slot canyon--it's easy to see why you would not make it out if there was a flash flood. 

So fun navigating all these twisty turns (and the kids looooved running up ahead and trying to surprise us). 

Can you see the high water mark in the rocks from all the floods? So cool to compare the two textures. 

We could have spent a whole day here but sadly we only had about an hour! 

Some bits you could just run through and then others you had to navigate down some pretty good drops. (And some you had to turn sideways and take off your pack and sort of inch along!)

So fun and totally worth the side trip!

Here was a really fun spot, the kids loooove it any time they get a chance to crab walk like this.

(I took this picture at the beginning when Matthew was still mad.)

Goodbye Utah--it was a fantastic week!! One of the rare trips that actually felt like a vacation--thank you everyone for being such phenomenal hosts!