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Show Goblin Valley Formations Provide Scenic Thrills to Area's Visitors "There's no place on earth quite like it." That's the way visitors describe Goblin Valley In south-central Emery County,- one of Utah's most unusual and little-known scenic attractions. Its name Is apropos, because when one walks among Its eerie, fantastic, formations, goblins, giant gi-ant birds, reptiles and all manner man-ner of strange creatures seem to Jump out from all sides. Goblin Valley Is located at the southeast corner of the San Rafael Ra-fael Swell, a short drive away from State Highway 21 between Green River and Hanksville. To About 600 acres of land, a get there, visitors must drive over gome ten miles of dirt road, por- Itlons of which are Impassable to the ordinary vehicle at certain times of the year, especially after af-ter a heavy rain. Visitors should also be cautioned cau-tioned that there are no camping camp-ing facilities at Goblin Valley. One should also carry water with him as there are no developed wells or springs in the area. Goblin Valley is being featured featur-ed in this week's "See Utah" series ser-ies because It Is a proposed state park and needs to be called to the public attention, according to D. James Cannon, director of the Utah Tourist and Publicity 'Council. "At the present time Goblin Valley lies in the public doman and is unprotected from vandalism," vandal-ism," Mr. Cannon said. "We are hopeful that the State Park and Recreation Commission can ac- I quire enough land In the near future to make It a part of the Utah Park system." small portion of the scenic area, Is held on lease by the state park agency from the U. S. Bureau of Land Management which administers admin-isters the mining and grazing rights on the surrounding domain. do-main. The discovery of Goblin Valley Val-ley is attributed to Arthur L. Chaff in of Teasdale, Wayne Co., Utah. Chaffin. now a retired river riv-er runner and former operator of the Colorado iv Hite, Utah, stumbled onto the site about 33 years ago while looking for a road route between be-tween Green River and Hanks-vile. Hanks-vile. Mr. Chaffin was Intrigued by Goblin Valley's unusual formations forma-tions and called the area "Mush-, "Mush-, room Valley" because many of the figures were bulbous on top and did indeed look like mushrooms. mush-rooms. The named was later changed to "Goblin Valley" because be-cause the witches, spooks and goblins won out i Goblin Valley did not come into public prominence until 1919. In that year, Mr. Chaffin took some friends, including pho-,11,'rapher pho-,11,'rapher and businessman Phil-jip Phil-jip W. Tompkins, of San Fran-j Fran-j Cisco, Calif., into Cathedral Valley Val-ley and Goblin Valley. Mr. Tomp-Ikins Tomp-Ikins took the first known photographs photo-graphs of the "goblins" and th pictures were later widely circulated. cir-culated. Actually, Goblin Vallej j is a cliff-rimmed basin, fillet! I with thousands of unusual, goblin-like formations. The numbei I of creatures one sees Is limited only by imagination. These f'T-mations f'T-mations have been sculptured by wind, rain, frost and sun over millions of years. To the geologist, the formations of Goblin Valley were eroded out i of reddish -brown or chocolate- I colored Entrada sandstone of the upper Jurassic series. This ero- 'sion is constantly going on today. |
