Well, a month or so ago I wanted to go to Gobin's Lair, in Goblin Valley State Park, UT. Events conspired against me (my wife's dad passed away), so I didn't get to go then. However, I did talke a long weekend this past weekend to make the pilgrimage, and it was quite enjoyable.
Caveat 1 - I went solo, so no pictures. It's hard to take pics of yourself by yourself!
Caveat 2 - I'm an old bald fat white guy. (If it must be known, 53 years old, 230#, 5' 9".) However, I'm relatively technically competent, having climbed quite a bit (and guided) in my younger days. And I try to stay fit and have no problem hiking for miles.
I found the trip and got route information from the climb-utah.com website. I'm not going to give detailed route info here, as it's available there, and his site is a paid site so I don't want to take revenue from him. I am very impressed with the climb-utah.com website, if I can give it a plug. It has good (and accurate) route information, it's organized well, you can find things to do by interest or difficulty, and it has pictures, GPS coordinates and maps.
I got to the park about 0930, signed in, got gear sorted and packed, and was hiking by 1000. It took maybe 30 minutes to get to the rappel point. I had no trouble following the route discription, and made it there without incident.
The rappel is done anchoring off of a large horn at the top of the cave. The horn is very solid, and there were three slings in place, with a rap ring and quick link. I had two 30M 8mm ropes, which I was assured (by Iceaxe in an earlier "Invite" post) were long enough. I rigged the rap and started down. You can't really tell if the ropes are long enough until you are over the edge. They were, by 10-15'. The rap was easy, a free rap for maybe the last half.
After pulling the ropes and stowing gear, I headed out of the chamber by the exit route. It was an easy scrambleup, then down. Continuing counter-clockwise around the same rock formation that I started toward at the beginning of the morning, I eventually encountered the somewhat faint and cairned Molly's Castle Overlook trail, which I followed back to the road.
All in all, it took me just over two hours, and was a very enjoyable trip. This would be an excellent introduction trip to technical canyoneering to the newbie.
On leaving the park, I signed back out at the visitor's center. They ask you to get a permit (free, although you still need to pay the $7 park access fee) before doing the route, which was some comfort to me, as at least someone knew where I would be and could come find me (or my remains) if something happened.