Goblin Valley, Utah is one of the most unique landscapes in the American Southwest, featuring thousands of mushroom-shaped rock formations called hoodoos. The clustering of these formations gives the valley an otherworldly look, and Goblin Valley State Park was founded to protect the hoodoos from vandalism.
Although Goblin Valley was inhabited by native people for generations, the area was almost entirely unknown to Americans until the early 20th century. In the late 1920s, a local ferryman named Arthur Chaffin stumbled across the valley while searching for a feasible route between two nearby towns.
Chaffin initially called it the “Valley of the Mushrooms” and marked the location on a map, but didn’t return until about 20 years later, when he was hired as a guide by amateur explorer Philip Tompkins. Tompkins was obsessed with the natural beauty of Utah’s deserts and asked Chaffin to show him something he’d never seen before. Chaffin decided to take him to Goblin Valley, and the two spent about a week camping there and taking photographs. It was Tompkins who came up with the valley’s unique name, likening the shape of the hoodoos to grotesque, inhuman figures.
Based on a press conference Tompkins and Chaffin held, the Deseret News Magazine published the first images and descriptions of Goblin Valley in 1950. Soon after, tourists started to swarm to the area, which alarmed Tompkins because he was concerned that they would harm his “goblins.” He began writing letters to every governing body he could think of, including Congress, the National Parks Service, and the state of Utah, pleading for preservation. It would be the Utah government that would respond and in 1954, the state purchased over 2,000 acres of land in the valley, founding the state park.
To make the most of your next trip to Utah, check out our Goblin Valley Utah Self-Guided Driving Tour, or you can sign up for Action+ to gain access to over 100 tours for a single yearly price.
