Cedar Breaks

Why should it be a National Park?

Cedar Breaks is a three-mile amphitheater eroded more than two thousand feet into the western edge of the Markagunt Plateau, and its rim sits above ten thousand feet. The rock is the same Claron Formation that makes Bryce Canyon, stained by iron and manganese into oranges, purples, and whites, and the altitude means the view comes with bristlecone pines and, for much of the year, snow. That altitude is what keeps the crowds away. The road closes in winter. The visitor season is short. Bryce Canyon, ninety minutes east and two thousand feet lower, draws several times the visitation for a landscape of the same geology and arguably less vertical drama.

Age is the other thing the altitude buys. Bristlecone pines grow along the rim, some of them well over a thousand years old, wind-carved into shapes that look deliberate. Below them, for a few weeks in July and August, the subalpine meadows run to wildflowers thick enough that the monument built a festival around them. Almost nobody sees both, because the two things happen in the same short window when the road is finally clear. At night the case gets easier. The monument sits far from any city, high and dry, and the sky over the amphitheater is among the darkest readings anyone takes in the lower forty-eight. It is certified as an international dark sky park, and the rangers run star parties on the rim at ten thousand feet, which is a different experience from the same program run at sea level.