Distance: 2.5 miles RT
Time: 1-2 hours (depends on time exploring the cave)
Start: North edge of parking lot (overlooking Goblin Valley)
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation Gain: 390
Bring: Flashlight & water
Your kids won’t want to do this hike unless you set the stage (or until they’ve already had some time to explore the hoodoos of Goblin Valley). Tell them about a cave large enough to fit a dragon and smaller goblin caves that you need to crawl on hands and knees to explore and their imagination will get the better of them. This is a fairly easy hike, but there is over a mile each direction where you will be out in the hot sun with little or no shade from the sun so bring a lot of water. Our first time to the lair, we found two girls hiking back who said there wasn’t anything to see (they must not have found the cave). It’s really not hard to find just climb the hill at the end and you will find an entrance going back down.
Once your eyes adjust a little, you will notice that the cave is actually fairly bright due to holes in the top of the cave that light light shine in (some people actually repel into the cave). The cave itself is mostly just a big open room that can be explored in just a few minutes, but look around near where you descended to find a much smaller cave that goes back about 100 feet (best guess since it’s hard to measure distance on your hands and knees). At one point I had to pull myself through on my stomach and then I reached what I believed to be the ending (a room just big enough to stand in). The first time through we saw a green dust on the walls and my kids were convinced it was goblin blood.
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