Easter at Goblin Valley

We headed down to Goblin Valley Easter weekend, in hopes of warm weather and some high caliber easter egg hunting. As has been the trend this year, it was cold and rained a lot, we're batting 1000 on hitting bad weather when we get out of town to escape it - those 30% chance of rain days have bucked the odds every time, without fail. The cool thing about the desert? Once the storm blows over it can go from 35* to 70* in about 45 minutes, and it did just that for us on Easter Sunday, providing for a good afternoon in the hoodoos.

The White chicks doing their yoga poses.
Easter morning the kids finished their easter egg hunt and found the booty stash about 45 seconds before the rain hit hard - we spent the next few hours huddled in the tent playing with their new stuff - which turned out to be pretty high quality time.
The day before was Little Wild Horse Canyon with Jeremy and Mandy and their kids who are schoolmates of our kids.

Log limbo near the canyon entrance.

Brock worked on his hatchet skills, still has all his toes.

Last year at Goblin Valley we were treated to an exceptional sunset. This year, for a brief period between rainstorms, we were treated to an exceptional Easter morning sunrise.

Here's the Honda Pilot ad version...

Goblin Valley has officially become one of the White family's favorite destinations. I took the new Yeti 29er bike out on it's first ride away from home, and found a whole bunch of new country to explore down there. Reminded me how much I love to jump on the bike with no idea where I'm going or going to end up, life at it's simplest, not many things better.

Goblin Valley, Little Wild Horse Canyon, and Calf Creek Falls

With summer break officially ending this week with the kids heading back to school, we hit the road for one more weekend of family adventuring before getting back to the grind.

Stop one was Goblin Valley where the world class scampering among the hoodoos was only outdone by the world class evening and sunset.

Now I'm not sure if there are actual classes of scampering, but if there are, GV has to be world class. Have heard all sorts of great ideas for play down there, from easter egg hunts to capture the flag, and don't know that there's a better place for any of that stuff. Being GV rookies, we kept it simple with hide and seek and some other gimmicks the kids came up with and had a blast. The place set the kids imaginations on fire and made us parents/grown ups feel and act like part of the kidlet tribe.

Watching for inbound pirate ships or something of that nature. At the end of the trip, Goblin Valley stood atop the list as kids favorite place of the weekend - a testament to the theory of whatever inspires their imaginations the most is the best in their eyes.

Day two would be their first slot canyon experience in Little Wildhorse Canyon. It was set up perfectly with the heavy rains a few days prior leaving several good water crossings, the kids got the full slot experience. We had them (sometimes forced them) hike through the water (chilly but not cold) on the way out, then let them do it how they wanted on the way back - the obvious choice was to climb the walls...

Even the 3 yr old figured it out pretty good.

We had to tell Kylie to stay within a reasonable height, think she would have climbed out the top if we let her.

Little Wildhorse was really a great place to give the kids a taste of slot canyons - short hike in and there were some high quality narrows sections that everyone enjoyed a lot.

Around the entrance to the canyon is this little feature that just begs to be jumped. Not posting the rest of the sequence, will let you look at trajectory at the midway point and determine if you think the kids are standing in a safe spot or not.
More shots from the canyon...

Day three was Lower Calf Creek Falls, which also didn't disappoint. ...

The traditional sprint finish that seems to always happen on the waterfall hikes. Once they see it, they're off. The oldest was already stripped down to her swim suit and in the water by the time I got to it. The middle was increasing her gap on the littlest as seen here, he's trying, but just not hangin yet....

It was a little overcast, and the fall itself creates a strong breeze which made it chilly. The water was cold, but my adventure book says you've gotta swim under it for the excursion to count.

The girls wisely stuck to wading and mud pie making on the pretty great beach.

The area even had a place for a workout on the bike. If it looks steep.......

it's because it was... sign at the top of the hill after turning around to head back down.

Fun trip topped off maybe the best summer we've had as a family, the kids are all old enough and plenty capable to do just about any adventure we can drum up. Pretty excited for the next few years while we've got them all in the "sweet spot" where they still think we're cool to hang out with and don't have better things to do with their weekends.