Cedar Breaks National Monument

Why sit through over 2 hours of driving to get to Bryce Canyon National Park when you can get to a location that will provide a similar experience in about half the time? Bryce Canyon is a 2 hour and 30 minute drive from Saint George; whereas, the drive to Cedar Breaks National Monument is only 1 hour and 20 minutes. 

Cedar Breaks National Monument is located near Cedar City, Utah. At an elevation of over 11,000 feet, it is significantly cooler in the summer months than Bryce Canyon, which is only 8,000-9,000 feet. The higher elevation feels like a step backward through time, as spring is just beginning in June at these heights. During this time, Cedar Breaks boasts breathtaking patches of wildflowers in full bloom, with a wildflower festival in early July every year.

A nationally recognized dark sky park, Cedar Breaks boasts some of the most impressive displays of the night sky in a state known for its views of the universe.  Wide open meadows fringed with spruce and aspens make for the perfect location to lie back on a blanket and watch the milky way march across the sky. 

While the atmosphere of Cedar Breaks is reminiscent to that of Bryce Canyon, and much of the vegetation is similar, the higher elevation and iron rich soils lend themselves to stands of Bristlecone pine trees. Slow growing and long lived these gnarled and twisted trees are typically several hundred years old and form pure stands where nothing else can eek out a living. Hiking out to Spectra point one encounters one of the most photogenic of the species perched on a finger of land that juts out into the spires and hoodos of the breaks. 

Link: https://www.nps.gov/cebr/index.htm