Today we intended to visit another southern Utah national monument called Cedar Breaks but were foiled, mostly. We left our campsite at Red Canyon and drove west on UT-12 until we got to US-89 where we turned north to Panguitch. When I was seven years old (in the Pleistocene Era), our family car’s fuel pump committed suicide in Panguitch and was repaired there. It looks about the same now. In Panguitch we turned on UT-143 and started the long climb to Cedar Breaks. Once we got up over 10,000′ elevation, we finally came to the intersection of UT-143 and UT-148 where we wanted to turn on 148 through the park. UT-148 was closed with a very sturdy NPS gate blocking our way onto the road through the park. You can see a bit of Cedar Breaks from the 143/148 intersection but that was about it. Apparently, they only open the park when no sane people want to be in southern Utah or from around June 1 to sometime in the fall. I am not too sure when it is really open because there are no signs to let anybody know. I suppose we could have called the government to see if the park was open but we have never had to call any parks before to find out if they were really operating a park whose sole purpose was to let people see ’em.
From the summit, we continued north on UT-143 (like we had a choice) down through the Brian Head ski resort which I am sure looks very pretty in the snow but is uglier than Bella Abzug in summer. The section of road from Brian Head down to Parowan in the high desert below is a twisting, steep drive down through some gorgeous terrain with great rock formations, rushing creeks near the road and lumpy pavement. At Parowan, we turned south on I-15 for about 15 miles into Cedar City. We bought a shitload of groceries there because there will be few places to do so in our next few weeks of travel.
From downtown Cedar City, we turned onto UT-14 by the south side of closed Cedar Breaks NM. There are a few glimpses of the park’s amazing terrain but few places to pull out for a better look. At the east end of the road, we drove into Long Valley Junction where we turned north on US-89 again for the trip back towards Red Canyon. Although we did not have the opportunity to get into Cedar Breaks, the loop drive we made so far today was terrific.
Once back at the Barbarian invader, we unloaded groceries but realized we still had plenty of daylight left so we went back into Red Canyon to visit the park visitor center. We picked up a few postcards that I tried to pay for but the lady working the desk went through numerous and identical descriptions of the hiking opportunities to many folks with heavy accents before finally taking my $4.81 for the cards about 15 minutes after I got in the short line.
We continued east on UT-12 and drove into a section of Bryce outside the part of the park where ordinary mortals are required to pay for access. The road leads to a place called Fantasyland Point and it is just beautiful. We arrived at our favorite picture-taking time in this state which seems to be late afternoon. The colors seem to emanate from the rocks in the PM.
We finally curtailed our explorations for the day and headed for the Invader. When we got home, Reggie and Pancho, some San Diego cronies of ours, were at our trailer and had stopped in for a visit. We caught up on old San Diego news, were informed about some nice side road drives locally and generally hobnobbed for a bit before they made their way back home to the hideous (but probably comfortable) condos up in Brian Head.
We shot a few pix during today’s lengthy excursion and they can be seen by clicking here