Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: Hanksville

The rocky landscape of southwest America features many ravines; a remarkable form is the slot canyon. A slotcanyon is a gap with high vertical walls, which are very close to each other. Most slot canyons can be found in dry areas, where occasional heavy flooding occurs. During such natural disasters, the water with stone and other debris rubs through the softer rock layers, creating the narrow gorges. Little Wild Horse Canyon is considered being one of the most beautiful slot canyons in the south of Utah. Little Wild Horse Canyon was our first slot canyon, so we were quite impressed by its beauty and diversity. Sometimes with very narrow passages where we only just could walk straight on, but there were also wider stretches with trees and shrubs. Especially in the beginning of the canyon the walls were hanging over and some alcoves were created. We regularly came across small boulders that we had to climb over. Our walk was an experience we would not have liked to miss.

Goblin Valley is a small State Park, about 2 miles long and 1 mile wide. In the valley are thousands of amazingly shaped rock figures, most of them no more than two or three meters high, surrounded by a wall of eroded cliffs. The shapes of these rocks result from an erosion-resistant layer of rock atop relatively softer sandstone. In 1949 the valley was named "Mushroom Valley", because many of the rock figures resemble mushrooms. Later the name was changed into Goblin Valley, which is also a well chosen name because one can easily see an army of gnomes in these hoodoos. Goblin Valley State Park (and Bryce Canyon National Park) contain some of the largest occurrences of hoodoos in the world. The goblins, like the surface of the valley, all have the same chocolate brown colour. Plants and flowers can hardly survive in this dry, warm environment, so there is no vegetation at all here. It is also allowed to walk into the valley and wander between the goblins. Goblin Valley was granted the status of State Park in 1964.