Cedar Breaks National Monument

When I left the house this morning my plan was to go back to Bryce Canyon National Park.  It occurred to me that it was now not only Saturday, but the start of the Labor Day holiday so I was afraid the Park would be packed.  I decided to go with Plan B which was to drive a scenic rectangle down near the entrance to Bryce.

From Joseph I took the dreaded interstate west until I reached I-15, which took me south.  In a little over an hour I took the exit for Parowan, turned left and took scenic Route 143 east towards Panguitch.  After having a real lunch there at a restaurant I saw the day before (not just veggie snacks today) I headed south on Route 89 until I reached Long Valley Junction.  There I turned right on to Route 14 which would take me west to the town on Cedar City which is just off I-15.  I would go north on the interstate to complete the rectangle.

Shortly after exiting at Parowan I passed the Brian Head ski area (up at approximately 10,500 feet).  I decided to stop along side the road where there was a nice view and refill my water bottles.  While doing that I considered taking the day off from picture-taking and just savoring the day with my binoculars instead.  That plan worked great for about 15 minutes when I stumbled across Cedar Breaks National Monument, which wasn’t even on my radar.  When I got to the first of their 4 overlooks it was time to haul out the cameras…..

I’m using the same philosophy I did with the pictures I took at Arches.  These are just broad strokes using only the camera in my smartphone.  Believe me, I took tons of pictures zoomed in with the digital camera, too.  I’ll post some of those another day.

By the way, I leave Joseph tomorrow morning to go back to Colorado for 2 days, then to upstate Utah for 2 days.  Then I’ll come back to southern Utah for several days and visit Bryce Canyon as well as Zion National Park and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.