Goblin Valley State Park

State Park 9,917 acres 5,400 ft high point Est. 1964 Utah Division of State Parks Dark Sky Park

Overview

Goblin Valley is a basin full of squat, mushroom-headed hoodoos eroded out of Entrada Sandstone — a few thousand of them, standing about head height, in an otherwise empty bowl in the San Rafael Desert. You are allowed to walk among them, which is unusual and is most of the appeal. What is less well known is the sky. In June 2015 Bob Meadows of the Park Service's Dark Sky Team set up at the observation point and found what he described as one of the darkest skies on record — a Bortle 2, with meter readings of 21.80. There is essentially nothing out here. The only light dome normally visible from the park is not a city at all: it is the Hunter and Huntington coal-fired power plants, fifty miles north in Castle Valley.

Getting in

When to go

Best: Apr, May, Oct

Spring and autumn. Summer is dangerously hot and shadeless; winter is cold, clear and empty.

Safety & conditions

Activities

Hiking

You walk among the goblins — there are no trails in the valley itself, which is the point. Longer routes to the Goblin's Lair and out to Wild Horse.

Season: Spring and autumn; summer is brutally hot.

Stay in the washes and off the crust.

Stargazing

Certified 2016. The NPS Dark Sky Team rated it Bortle 2 and called it one of the darkest skies on record, reading 21.80 at the observation point. The only light dome is a pair of coal plants fifty miles north.

Season: Year-round; new-moon windows best. Autumn and spring nights are the most comfortable.

Photographing the Milky Way over the goblins is the shot. Bring a red light and stay out of the campground glow.

Camping

A small campground and a few yurts, right beside the valley.

Regs: Reservable through Utah State Parks; it fills.

Canyoneering

Little Wild Horse and Bell canyons — the classic beginner slot loop — are just outside the park boundary on BLM land.

Season: Spring and autumn. Flash-flood risk with the monsoon.

Night Sky

Dark Sky Park Certified 2016 Bortle 2 21.80 mag/arcsec² across 1 site

Bortle 2, and the Park Service's own observer called it 'one of the darkest skies on record.' What is remarkable is what makes the only light dome. It is not a town: 'The Hunter and Huntington Power Plants, located approximately fifty miles north in the Castle Valley, create what is normally the only light dome visible from the park.' Two coal-fired power stations, half a hundred miles off, are the brightest thing on Goblin Valley's horizon. Faint light from Green River and Moab shows to the east and northeast, and Hanksville to the south. What else moves it: moon, and — genuinely — the campground, on a busy night.

About these numbers

The park is candid about the limits of its own survey, twice. First: 'The park's original SQM-L light meter began malfunctioning in October 2014, resulting in extremely bright readings for both that month and November. This data has been discarded.' Second, and more interesting: 'The March 2015 readings, out of necessity with the moon cycle, took place during one of the busiest times of the year. Significant campground light pollution may have influenced many of the data points.' A dark-sky park's own campground brightening its own dark-sky survey is the whole problem in miniature. The thirteen surveyed sites also exclude the southern and western backcountry, which the park left out on safety grounds. So the headline figure here is the NPS reading at the observation point, not a park-wide mean — because a trustworthy park-wide mean does not exist.

What the sky does here

Typical

Bortle Class 2: The Wilderness Has Its Own Light

Under a Class 2 sky, darkness is nearly natural yet the landscape remains emotionally legible. The Milky Way becomes architecture, still water can carry a second sky, and the night feels less alien than complete.
Only when

Bortle Class 3: Civilization Beyond the Rim

Looking north toward Castle Valley, where the Hunter and Huntington coal plants put up the only light dome the park normally sees — or on a busy night in the campground, which the park's own survey admits was bright enough to affect its readings.

Geology

The goblins are Entrada Sandstone: alternating harder and softer beds, weathered so the soft layers undercut and the hard caps stay on. That is why they are all roughly the same height and all wear hats.

Province: Colorado Plateau — San Rafael Swell / San Rafael Desert

Rock types: sandstone, siltstone

Major formations

Entrada SandstoneSandstone · JurassicTwo facies: a well-cemented cliff-forming sandstone (the Slick Rock) that erodes into fins and arches, over/under earthy, less-cemented slope-formers that 'weather like shale' and undercut it — the recipe for arches.

Ecology

Biomes: Colorado Plateau desert shrubland; sand desert

Flora

Mormon tea
saltbush
cryptobiotic soil crust between the goblins

Fauna

kit fox
kangaroo rat
midget faded rattlesnake
burrowing owl

Very dry, very open. The crust between the formations is alive and takes decades to recover — stay in the washes.

History

The San Rafael Desert lies within the ancestral homeland of the Ute and Southern Paiute peoples, whose connection to this country continues. Ranchers and prospectors knew the valley for decades before it was protected; it became a Utah state park in 1964.

Modern issues

Coal plants on the horizon

Status: ongoing

As of: 2026-07-13

The Hunter and Huntington power stations, fifty miles north in Castle Valley, make the only light dome normally visible from the park.
The park's own campground

Status: acknowledged

As of: 2026-07-13

The park's certification application concedes that campground lighting may have affected its own March 2015 sky-quality readings.