October 16 - 20th, 2015 BLM near Goblin State Park and Green River

 October 16-19th - Goblin State Park

We decided to leave the Capitol Reef National Park boondock area a day early as heavy rain is forecasted for Saturday and Sunday and the spot we were in is pretty soft with lots of red sand. The dog certainly wouldn't stay clean. So by 9:15 it's back on the road for the hour and a half drive to Goblin State Park. 

Our directions from my Frugal Shunpiker book is right on the money. We found a great BLM site in a gravel parking lot with a pit toilet just off the paved road quite close to the park. Lots of kids climbing the rocks and playing in the sand on the other side of the fence. We have a spectacular view. The first of the boondock spots are along the road to the state campsite in the park.  Incredible views of the San Rafael Reef across the wash.  These sites are through some soft material, so no good with the rain coming.

The South Wash BLM Campsite below:

There is another parking lot 2 miles up the road Temple Mountain (which is now dirt/sand) with even more spectacular views where lots of OHV people go. We decided against it as the road crosses several washes and if the heavy rain does come you could be stuck.

We decided to pay the $10 and go into Goblin State Park in the afternoon today, again because of the forecasted rain and we may not be able to see it later. Good thing we went, as the whole thing would be one muddy sinkhole if it rained and you would not be able to "walk among the Goblins".  It was fabulous, like walking on another world. Perhaps like something out of Lord of the Rings.

The next three pics are on the road into the "Goblins"

State Campsite

Wild Horse Creek

Wild Horse Butte above and two below

Gibson and Little Gibson Butte

Now the Goblins:

Above and below is looking down from the ridge above "The Goblin Garden"

Monkey Business

It ended up being a very long day for Ray, way too much walking and standing, but as this was once in a lifetime spot ... pain medication is in order. Poor guy was pretty sore even with the meds. With all of the driving, and minimal set up at each spot, he's only took the heavy pain medication twice as we have tried to limit the walking and I am doing all of the car driving for touring he is managing.  It will be nice to just stay somewhere for more than 2 days once we get the National Park stuff done before the cold weather hits.

We made the decision Saturday to stay home today for the first time as he was very sore, the sprinkles of rain began and I needed to bake cookies and bread to last for another week.  Kind of a gloomy day. The temps are now between 60 and 65 degrees but it feels much warmer when the sun shines.

Ray got some before and after pictures on the thunderstorm that started showing in the afternoon and lasted all night.  Freya freaked all night.  One lighting strike came very close as it shook the motorhome badly.

It pissed all night and we could hear the wash below us build louder and louder.  The rain quite around 5 AM and when it got light enough Ray took off for pictures but the sand gobbled up most of the water.

 Sunday morning it cleared up with sun with clouds so we decided to take Temple Road further through some washes and head towards I-70. The cut through the San Rafael Reef to the back side and Temple Mountain is beautiful.

Temple Mountain

See the OHV area with RV's middle right

Temple Mountain

After a mile of less scenic ground and looking behind us we see the  "sawtooth mountains" from the San Rafael Reef across the valley, we decided to back track and go down the "Behind the Reef Road".

Rolling hills scenes from road to I70

Wow! quite the goat track in spots but unbelievably we saw some larger fifth wheels camped and in fact we passed them on the road back out. The next three pics are the back side of San Rafael Reef.

After reaching the end of the road we walked up a hill to see what was on the other side. Wow.

The end of the trail. What a great view. So we've seen both sides of the San Rafael Reef. While we were there, we noticed some ominous black clouds come in and as we crossed several washes, we decided to "get out of dodge" and make tracks back to the coach.

It was pretty nice at the campsite so after I drove around scrounging up some wood from the campers that had left this morning we had a lovely campfire for a few hours.

Ray and I also noticed that we could hear the wash below the campsite roaring so it obviously rained hard further up the Reef. Glad we were not at any of the campsites further up the road.

October 19-20 Green River

 We left at the early hour of 11am at the BLM at Goblin Valley to drive the 1 hour to Green River on I-70 as the sun is out and the roads were dry. We wanted to go to a plug in site so I could get laundry done, fill up with water and dump in  preparation for the next leg of our journey to Arches and Canyonland National Parks. A good choice as it did nothing but rain off and on for the 2 days we were there. The drive up along the San Rafael  Reef is spectacular though.

The Green River State Park is just on the other side of the road from the RV park we're in. Ray got some sunset pictures last night. The park features a golf course.

 In between me doing loads of laundry, we took Hastings Road north of Green River as we were interested in exploring the beautiful scenery we noticed from the RV park.

Battleship (right of centre) and Blue Castle Buttes

Gunnison Butte

This is a wonderful area to visit.  One idea for future travel is to take Hwy 6 from Salt Lake City to Green River to see the back side of the buttes above.