Goblin's Lair/Chamber of the Basislisk; Arscenic

[peakbaggers]

Last weekend we decided to take advantage of what may very well be the last weekend of moderate weather for some time and do some canyon routes. We left GJ Sat morning and drove out to Goblin Valley planning to visit the Goblin's Lair/Chamber of the Basilisk. We stopped at the park entrance and obtained our permit from a courteous rangerette who also provided a route description (which turned out to be copied from Shane's site). By 10:30 we were underway. Our hope was to arrive at an optimal time for photographs and we were prepared with camera and tripod for the expected low light conditions.
The route was easy enough to locate with plenty of footprints. Along the way, we encountered one couple back in a small cave-like formation who probably thought they had found a great, private place to enhance their romance. (Reminded me of one of your reports, Shane.)
Passing by this couple, we arrived at the base of the upper white cliffs and the beginning of the drainage. We headed down and quickly arrived at the cave entrance. The rappel was anchored by two slings around the horn with a rap ring. The rappel into the chamber was like descending into another world - probably similar to the feeling cavers get. We were impressed by the chamber. The lighting was as we had hoped and we spent 45 minutes taking numerous photos. (See attached below) We found some of the geologic structures interesting such as the popcorn rock (see photo). Was this formed by erosion or accretion?
After the photo session, we hiked on up through the entrance and made the stroll back around to our vehicle.

From Goblin Valley, we headed on down to the North Wash area and did a quick trip counterclockwise around Lucky Charms. We took a rope and used the direct, watercourse descent in the second drainage to make it more interesting. As usual, there were numerous campers at the Sandthrax campsite and we spent some of the evening visiting with them. Among whom was Rick Thompson with his Wasatch Mountain Club group. They were planning on doing one of the Poison Spring canyons the next day and we settled on trying Arscenic, joined by a friend of ours from GJ who would arrive early morning.
Arscenic turned out to be a nice half day canyon. We left a fixed 200 rope for the initial rappel in and retrieved it on the way back out. After the rappel, the canyon had one fairly descent downclimb and several other smaller obstacles, chockstones, etc. It was a visually nice canyon with a spectacular entrance and a not-too-long hike out for a sandy slog back. It was all dry. We were prepared to find Arscenic Arch which took us by surprise when we did come upon it. We were kind of scouting around on the slickrock and suddenly discovered that the arch was right there, only feet away from us, but because we had approached it on end, did not realize at first that we were standing at the arch. The next group of photos are of Arscenic and the arch.

After Arscenic, we had just enough time to drive back to North Wash and
show our friend Dan one more quick canyon. We skipped taking the camera so as to keep things moving and hiked up and descended the west fork of Blarney, making a 2 hour round trip to end our weekend. Blarney was all dry as well.

[Eric Holden]

Beautiful trip report. Looks absolutely gorgeous!

[canyondevil]

Great pictures!!

[Scott P]

Nice!

[Iceaxe]

I'm going to have to visit the little cave in Goblin Valley again with the hot young stripper wife and see what the big attraction is :-)

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[Kuya]

Beautiful pictures of the Chamber! Some of the best I have seen of it actually! I will be doing that hike again this weekend with some scouts! :)

Thanks for the nice TR!

[yetigonecrazy]

nice short n sweet fall trip. jealous! thanks for sharing with us

[Slot Machine]

These are the best pics of The Lair that I have ever seen! It is tought to take a decent photo in there.

@Iceaxe should offer you a free subscription so he can post these on his website.

Your whole outing looked like a blast! Thanks for sharing.

[Kuya]

These are the best pics of The Lair that I have ever seen! It is tough to take a decent photo in there.

I AGREE!

[Rob L]

Scott P introduced me to Goblin's Lair with about 15 others back in November 2011. We all took photos but none as good as those.

One wonders whether it might be worth taking a professsional low-light photographer (say...a caver) there to do the place the honours it deserves, especially if some of those same shots can be done with someone on rapell.

[Mountaineer]

Great pics, and you covered some top canyons in a short time. I think Arscenic is one of the best. I love that first rap.

Yeah, Sandthrax seems to get a lot of visitors.

Thanks for sharing.

[peakbaggers]

Scott P introduced me to Goblin's Lair with about 15 others back in November 2011. We all took photos but none as good as those.

One wonders whether it might be worth taking a professsional low-light photographer (say...a caver) there to do the place the honours it deserves, especially if some of those same shots can be done with someone on rapell.

To take quality photos in there, you just about have to be on tripod - so trying to get a great shot on rappel would be a real trick. Some cameras with video might do better, then you could isolate one of the frames for a single print.
The first photo is an HDR - a combination of 3 shots at differing apetures when you have a high contrast situation, then combined using a program called Photomatix.

Thanks everyone for the compliments.

[Eric Holden]

The first photo is an HDR - a combination of 3 shots at differing apetures when you have a high contrast situation, then combined using a program called Photomatix.

Thanks everyone for the compliments.

Good post editing. I have found many HDR pictures to just be way over done. The key to a good HDR, is looking at it and not knowing it was HDR! Great picture!

[jbick]

I absolutely love that first photo! Sounds like you guys had fun with your photo shoot.

[IntrepidTraveler]

I agree with the compliments on the photos, as well as the HDR. You evidently have the Photomatix settings nailed!

I did Goblin's Lair a few months ago solo, and really enjoyed it.