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.