It was a sparse turnout for my semi-annual San Rafael Swell geocaching event this fall. Heavy rains in the forecast scared almost everyone away, but I forged ahead with the get-together because some of the most memorable events have been those with bad weather, and never has rain or snow kept us from having a good time. I made a quick trip down on Wednesday afternoon the week before to ensure the sites we usually camp at near the junction of Temple Mountain Road and Goblin Valley Road are still open. With the BLM’s war on dispersed camping and the recent Goblin Valley expansion, the free camping in the area is under constant threat of becoming designated, paid sites. But everything was open and there weren’t a lot of people camped in the area, so all was well! On my way home I took Delta and Cassia for a couple of short hikes in the San Rafael Desert, one to the Desert benchmark and another in a little canyon across the San Rafael River from Hatt’s Ranch.
Desert BM knoll
Desert 1952 survey marker
“Summit” register
Delta and Cassia
Henry Mountains and the truck
Hiking up a nice wash
G. Wolrath 1959
Dale Lee 1959
Airplane flying over the moon
Hiking after sunset
Traci and I drove back down the following Tuesday after we both got off work, and for the first time in the nearly 20 years I’ve been going to this area we weren’t able to get any of the spots we usually camp at. Apparently the gloomy weather forecast wasn’t enough to deter a lot of people and all the dispersed camp spots were taken. It doesn’t help that the BLM has turned the two free campgrounds (which were previously open, dispersed camp areas) into pay campgrounds. That effectively drives more people like me, who don’t want or need their “amenities” like a concrete fire ring or pit toilet, into an increasingly smaller area. And then in the future, I’m sure, they’ll point to the increased impacts at those remaining free camping areas and use that as justification to close them. And the BLM isn’t completely to blame–certainly in the last five years (at least!) the number of people traveling and camping has exploded. Okay, rant over (for now). We found ourselves at the large dispersed camping area at the very north end of the Goblin Valley State Park, where we parked about as far away from existing visitors as we could and decided to not stress over it and make the best of the situation.
Our camp spot and nearby neighbors
I worked on Wednesday but had the rest of the week off. In the morning I enjoyed something I absolutely love, seeing the La Sal Mountains and Henry Mountains before sunrise. We learned that day just how popular the new Goblin Valley sign is–an insane amount of people stopped there every day to take photos of the sign, including a tour bus with dozens of people. That afternoon I took turns walking all three dogs around a dirt airstrip across the Goblin Valley Road from our camp. The oldest USGS topo map I could find of the area is from 1953 and the airstrip appears on it, so it’s at least that old. Out in that flat and barren desert terrain, any manmade object easily draws your attention, and while I walked the dogs I flitted around to anything I saw. There was a triangular barbed wire enclosure with fenceposts made from drill steel, with a nearby pile of one-quart oil cans. I believe it was aviation oil and I don’t think I’d want to fly in a plane that consumes that much oil! There were mining claims, survey markers, and even the faint remains of the original Goblin Valley Road. That evening Traci and I sat outside after sunset to watch the moonrise.
Moon and Belt of Venus over the San Rafael Reef
Henry Mountains
La Sal Mountains
Goblin Valley dispersed camping area
Tour group at the Goblin Valley sign
Oil cans at a triangular fence enclosure
No. 80 S.A.E. 40
Drill steel used as a fence post
Old road to Goblin Valley
Disintegrated mining claim paper
Newer survey marker
Dirt airstrip
Waning moon
I went for a solo hike of about 8.5 miles on Thursday. I set out around sunrise from the Goblin Valley Road and followed cattle trails through some hilly country, aiming for a canyon in the San Rafael Reef northeast of Crack Canyon. I carefully planned the first 1.5 miles of my route on those cattle trails ahead of time using Google Earth, otherwise it would have been frustrating and time-consuming getting through all the little hills and washes. I reached the canyon and almost immediately, within the first quarter-mile, I found some inscriptions and a single pictograph. Lorin Turner and H.T. Yokey both left their names here, and the pictograph was just a simple vertical line with a little circle on top. That was surprisingly all the writings I would see on the entire rest of this trip.
Parked along Goblin Valley Road
Following a cattle trail
Upstream in Wild Horse Creek
Henry Mountains
Wild Horse Butte
Across the flats
Mining claim marker
Cairn at the canyon entry point
Tamarisk, cottonwoods, and a pool
Checking the ledges for inscriptions
H.T. Yokey inscription
Pictograph
Continuing up the canyon I entered the Navajo Sandstone and had to climb around a couple of dryfalls. Then I reached a spot where I could see an impassable water-filled slot section ahead. I climbed out to the rim and had hoped to bypass the slot and descend back into the canyon but it was too steep and rugged to get back in. Instead I changed course and stayed high until I found a place to drop into the right fork of the canyon. I followed that fork up beyond its head without seeing anything of interest.
Top of the Navajo Sandstone
Above a dryfall and pool
Hiking along the canyon rim
Impassable section
View toward Goblin Valley
Cottonwoods in the canyon
Upper canyon that I couldn’t get into from below
Right fork of the canyon
Hiking up the Reef
Large cairn
View down the right fork at my entry point
Reddish-brown boulders
Navajo pinnacle
Temple Mountain
I turned around at that point and descended a different canyon. It was an uneventful hike back to the cattle trails between the Reef and the paved road. I saw a couple of section markers, one from 1955 and another from 2020. As I got closer to the truck I tried leaving the cattle trail and taking a more direct route but it backfired on me. I ended up above a wash with very steep and crumbly dirt slopes on each side, and I had to go far out of my way finding a route into the wash and back out the other side.
View down the Reef
Descending a different canyon
Mylar balloon
Shaly dropoff
Old road
Survey marker
Survey marker and view to where I came from
The truck and Gilson Butte
Cliffed out above the wash
That afternoon my friends Ken & Jan arrived at camp, then my brother-in-law Mark and several nieces and nephews, and finally the storm rolled in. It started raining as I was outside with dinner on the grill and I just had to endure it ’til the food was cooked. A bunch of us played games inside the trailer that night, and after dark a couple in a van rather impolitely backed in right between my trailer and Ken & Jan’s van, despite there being plenty of room nearby without encroaching too closely. It rained all night and their van was hopelessly mired in the mud the on Friday morning. I didn’t offer to help pull them out, but instead loaned them a shovel which they used to no avail. They finally gave up and called a tow truck which pulled them out easily, and they left a huge mess behind which my young nephews and I cleaned up with shovels and a rake the next day. Later in the afternoon it was still sprinkling but Mark and I decided to go for a walk on the east side of the Goblin Valley Road to check out some mysterious dark circles I’ve seen all over the San Rafael Desert in the satellite imagery. They all seem to occur near roads and I’ve always assumed they were old drill sites, and that the circles were either just disturbed areas where different plants were growing, or something like burned coal left behind by old steam-powered drilling rigs. Instead we found that they’re just huge circles of cow shit! As we hiked back to camp and I pondered our findings, I think I figured it out: although I didn’t see a salt lick there, I think ranchers must be placing them out in the desert, drawing in cattle and hence concentrating their crap all in one place. That would also explain why they occur next to roads–those salt blocks weight about 50 pounds each.
Storm’s a-comin’
Camp with storm to the south
San Rafael Reef shrouded in low clouds
Tow truck pulling out a stuck van
Mess left by the stuck van
Colossal circle of cow crap
Interesting 1921 survey marker
The wet weather was supposed to clear up on Saturday morning. Mark and I waited until about 10:00 AM to see if conditions would be nice enough to go hiking, and indeed they were! We did a very similar but somewhat shorter hike to the one I did on Thursday, up one canyon in the San Rafael Reef and back down another, but we also added an ascent of point 5,803′ above Wild Horse Creek. We again followed cattle trails and crossed Wild Horse Creek, which was flowing wide and shallow this time. We were able to hop across rocks and keep our shoes dry. The canyon we ascended had many pools and a lot of quicksand. We reached a dryfall where I had planned on turning around, but it actually looked climbable so I scrambled and climbed my way to the top. I had a quick peek around above the dryfall but it didn’t look worthwhile so I climbed down with a little difficulty.
Clouds on the Henry Mountains
Cattle trail
Steep muddy trail
Rare flow in Wild Horse Creek
Mark crossing Wild Horse Creek
In the lower Navajo Sandstone section
Pool of water
Narrow section
Dryfall
Above the dryfall
We retreated a short distance down the canyon and climbed out one side enroute to point 5,803′. Along the way I spotted a mano and some old bighorn sheep horns, and we encountered some stacks of rocks and wooden posts that I assume were some sort of mining claim markers. The hike up to the high point was pretty fun, following some wide slickrock drainages and ridges the entire way. We saw a pair of bighorn sheep and they didn’t seem too concerned with our presence. We only spent a few minutes at the top before turning around and taking a different canyon down off the Reef. We crossed Wild Horse Creek in a different spot and the flow seemed to have receded a lot since earlier that morning.
View down-canyon after climbing out
Crossing over the Reef
Mano
Partial bighorn sheep horns
Slickrock expanse
Mining claim markers?
Ascending the San Rafael Reef
Small pinnacle
Our camp in the distance
Point 5,803′ in view
Bighorn sheep
Mark on point 5,803′
View down into Wild Horse Creek
Flat Top on the right
View northeast from point 5,803′
Pools
Descending a different canyon
Small pillar of Entrada Sandstone
Diminished flow in Wild Horse Creek
The ten of us all gathered for a potluck dinner that evening. I was hoping to spend time around a campfire afterward but it was cold and quite breezy so we skipped the fire and played games inside again. On the last day, Sunday, Mark and I took the kids for a short drive and a couple of short hikes nearby. We visited the metate that I found many years ago and have gone back to visit almost every year since. Everyone pulled out of camp and went home that afternoon. The rainy weather didn’t really put a damper on the trip (at least not for those who were part of the geocaching group! 😀 ), but it would have been nice if more people had come. I doubt I’ll hold another of these events in this area. Between the uncertainty of even getting a spot, and having to deal with all the gumbies camped nearby, I’ll save my trips there for solo hikes in the Reef where it’ll be easier to avoid the masses who are thankfully oblivious to all the nearby great country at their disposal.
Henry Mountains
The Metate
Photo Gallery: A Swell Fall 2025