Cedar Breaks National Monument

After a quick lunch in Cedar City, Trusty Toyota and I climbed the 5,000 ft. or so up yet another canyon pass to Cedar Breaks.  I got to see in the daytime what I had missed when I followed those wonderful taillights down this road when I returned from Bryce Canyon after dark a couple of weeks ago!

There was a fire here sometime ago.  One of those tall peaks shows through the bare trees.

Pretty sheer cliffs, white clouds, and blue sky

There were multitudes of these signs along this road.  This view probably is looking south toward Kolob and the fire and smoke. The weather actually was clear and sunny.

The turnoff from the highway into Cedar Breaks with puffy clouds and that different shade of western blue sky.

Here we are, folks, at the entrance to a small but impressive Park/ National Monument.

This log cabin is the Visitors' Center for Cedar Breaks.  Actually, it is very fitting for the location.  The back side is all windows, looking over the view.  The back side probably was not originally all windows.

Yes, I did climb from Cedar City at 3,000 - 4,000 ft. to this elevation in 20 - 30 minutes.  And, yes, the temperature did a nose dive!

"...and what to my wondering eyes should appear..."

not Santa and his reindeer but my friends from Kolob Canyon and

JereKay with no jacket and cold enough to be on Santa's team.

I always put in an extra jacket or 2, since one never knows what weather will be encountered.

I was the "she-ro" of the day, for I had an extra jacket to JereKay to borrow. 

They had already said at Kolob that they would be at the Gift Shop the next day, so she could return it then.

Timing couldn't have been better.

                           Cedar Breaks has hoodoos remniscent of Bryce Canyon's, but different.

The sandstone here is so soft, it probably has buried many of the spires.  The ones in the base of the canyon look like they might be "up to their knees" in sand.

I'll have to get my geologist son to explain why the sand is bleached at the tops of some of the cliffs

and not at the tops of others.

This is looking almost exactly straight down.

Sorry, the pictures just don't do the views justice.

You just must come to see for yourselves.

...and the views go on...and on...and on.

The view from a different angle

This is looking straight at the prow I was on previously...that white peak.

only another 100 feet in elevation!

The cedars growing down in this canyon must be there because of the elevation.

There was the most beautiful bee on this thistle, but my shutter speed was too slow, so he is gone in search of another blossom in this land so barren of flowers.

The few flowers that are here are such a welcome sight.

This is the sort of sign one sees up here all along the way.

I keep remembering the night I followed the taillights over this road, with no idea what was "out there".

Duck Creek Village is 4-wheelers' paradise.  They were buzzing around so on the dirt roads here that they all had bandanas over their noses and mouths.  Dune buggies and ATVs and 4-wheelers of all descriptions were in abundance.  You wouldn't believe the senior citizens who were whipping around on these things!

Just a little local color.

Main Street  in Duck Creek Village

Two phenomenon here:  traffic backed up at the long tunnel on the east side of Zion Park is NOT a phenomenon in the summer.

That white, cone-shaped spire is to me a  phenomenon.  It looks as if a painter or sculptor had layered paint or plaster on with a knife or paddle.

This amphitheater on the east side of the park amazes me also.

True to their word, my friends from Nashville and Jacksonville returned my jacket after hiking The Narrows.

David, Nelbeth, Peg, JereKay, and James

You all have to plan a trip to the Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough next October... you probably couldn't find a place to stay this year. Everything has been sold out for months.

Until we meet again.

New sights, new friends, new adventures in Kolob Canyon of Zion National Park

Zion National Park is in 2 parts for those of us challenged by overnight camping, "roughing it", and "things that go bump in the night" !!!  The most visited portion is the canyon just outside Springdale, UT, where the Lodge is located and the shorter hiking trails, although The Narrows and Angels Landing are not for the faint of heart.  I probably am too old and decrepid and too big a sissy to try them.

My next adventure is in the portion of Zion National Park just off I-15, between Cedar City and St. George, UT  After checking in at the Visitors' Center there...

...manned by 2 lady rangers and a young lady in the tiny gift shop, I drove up the 5 mile drive to Kolob Canyons Viewpoint, where I took off on the 1 mile hike called Timber Creek Overlook Trail, which follows a ridge to a small peak with views of Timber Creek Kolob Terrace, and the Pine Valley Mountains...on a clear day, which quickly down graded.

You may think that white cloud behind me is just another beautiful cloud in the blue western sky, but it isn't.  It is smoke from a fire that re-lit overnight. and spread very quickly.

In the hour or 2 that I was at Kolob Canyon of Zion, the smoke clouded the entire sky toward the north.

All the following pictures were taken between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. with the sun high overhead.

The sun through the smoke makes a strange filter.

Get out your magnifying glass and see if you can read this sign on the views to be seen from the overlook.

Farther away from the fire, the smoke is just laying over the tops of the peaks...as seen from the trail.

From along the trail, looking back over the parking lot toward the north and the smoke being carried by the prevailing winds.  In the parking lot, I saw cars with license plates from Davidson Co., TN and Shelby Co., TN  Most I have seen in one place.

These views would be awesome on a clear day, but they are pretty spectacular through the smoke.

The cloud drift to left may be smoke; but the long, skinny cloud truly is a cloud; and the view is much clearer to the east.

...and even clearer to the south.

You meet the nicest people on the trails.  These 2 couples, one from Nashville and one from Florida, saw my UT fanny pack and struck up a conversation. The fellow from Florida graduated from UTK.  Another small world story.  They were very interested in my working in the Parks and wanted to know more.  There is more to tell later in the day.

It's a happy time when you make new friends in the Park.

The smoke took some of the beauty out of my pictures in Kolob.  Now that we have had rain (actually a week of rain), I'll go back and get clearer pictures.

Watch that first step behind you, Peg.  It's a long way down.

That tiny, dark peak just to the left of the tree sticking its tip up and the sandstone just the left of it...that's supposed to be close to Las Vegas, maybe 150 miles away.  Note no smoke obliterating the view. 

 "On a clear day you can see forever." 

The valley below Kolob Canyon of Zion National Park.

I'm headed to Cedar City and back up into the mountains to Cedar Breaks National Monument for

another adventure.

Bryce Canyon National Park

I finally arrived at Bryce early afternoon on Sunday, August 28.  The temperature was between 72 and77 degrees on the north end of the Park.  As you climb during the 18 mile drive from the entrance of the Park on the north end at about 7700 feet elevation to the south end of the road at Rainbow Point in excess of 9100 feet elevation, you pull our your jacket.  The scenery is unique and striking,

"This must be the start of something new"... and new and different it truly is

This is only the introduction...the best is yet to come

The view to the northeast from Sunrise Point...

and looking more easterly from Sunrise Point,,,

This is the zoomed version of what is between the cliffs in the 2 previous pictures.!

Bryce Canyon Lodge.

I thought the red convertible added just the right touch.

Bryan, your brother-in-law is responsible for my seeking out and meeting Linda from Jonesborough, who is working in the gift shop at Bryce, as I am at Zion

Looking down into these spires reminded me of looking down on an ancient adobe city with spired rooftops.

This is Sunset Point.  Sunrise, Sunset, Inspiration, and Bryce points encircle Bryce Amphitheater, the biggest natural amphitheater in the park.

A view from a few feet down the path.

And a few feet on, we get a different perspecetive.

Until I figure out how to rotate, you'll have to turn your head sideways (or your computer).

There is a path down there; and people are walking the "Under-the-Rim trail", actually under the rim of the canyon on which I am standing.  This is Inspiration Point, I believe.

The high point just to the left of center is Bryce Point, which faces north.  As you can see, the sun was down, so I by-passed Bryce Point and headed on down the road.

From that to this!  This broad area on top of the plateau has been burned in the recent past.  It reminded me of the drive between Canyon and Norris in Yellowstone National Park, my 1st Park adventure.

                         As you can see, looking off to the West, the sun is riding lower in the sky.

Swamp Canyon...almost 8,000 feet elevation.

This area fronts on The Pink Cliffs.  Just look at that sky.

The pull-off is between the 2 areas that reminded me so much of Yellowstone...the burn you just saw and the broad tree'd area following.



This is about the same elevation as the area with which I am associating it in Yellowstone if I'm not mistaken.  tha could account in part for the similarities I see with ponderosa pine, spruce, and fir.

Amazing.

Fairview Point at  8800 ft. offers views of plateaus and mountains.

Natural Bridge wasn't formed by a stream like true natural bridges.  More accurately an arch, it was carved by rain and frost erosion acting from the top of the rock.

                                                         Off to one side of Natural Bridge

Even the clouds posed for Carol at Natural Bridge.

More clouds and blue sky

...and over the cliff behind me.

This is the view from Rainbow Point at the southern terminus of the 18 mile park road..

These mountains in the background possibly are the Navajo Mountains with the Kaibab Plateau at top right 90 miles away in Arizona (North Rim of the G.C. is in the Kaibab Plateau area).

Called The Poodle, this hoodoo northwest of Rainbow Point seems to pose for the camera. Reputed to be difficult to find, I'm proud of this photo.

With the sun going down and a 3 hour drive to get back to Zion Lodge, I beat a hasty retreat from Bryce.  The outside temperature was 54 degrees, and it was twilight.  Since there are virtually no guardrails on the Zion highway on the east side (you saw that road in the previous Blog), I elected to go back via Cedar City and a canyon between 10,000 ft. elevations, which I had never been in before, much less after dark.  I said many prayers along the way as signs for trucks showed  6% - 10% grades and 4 sets of taillights in front of me guided the way.  That was one time I was thankful that I was not the lead dog; and the scene may have changed around me; but the one in front of me remained those 4 sets of taillights!

 When I pulled into a parking place in front of the dorm, my headlights lit up these beautiful, night-blooming white, very poisonous flowers.

I slept like a baby.