Wednesday August 23rd 2017

I drove 20 miles and climbed five thousand feet to visit Cedar Breaks National Monument. Simply stated Cedar Breaks is a half mile deep hole in the ground filled with red and white stone formations. It is filled with fascinating cliffs, windows, arches and hoodoos.

I took about two hundred and fifty pictures. Taking pictures was a way of keeping my pace slow as a hiked the trails. It is very easy to over do it at ten thousand feet. I walked around one section of the amphitheater to Spectra Point. Not only is the view from the point spectacular, it is also home to a grove of Bristle-cone pines. Some of the trees in the grove are almost two thousand years old. A group of similar bristle-cone pines in Nevada are the oldest trees on the planet at around 5000 years old.

The hike is labeled as “Moderate”, but it has a lot of altitude changes. The actual Spectra Point is lower than the start of the trail, but to get there you need to climb to a much higher elevation. It was a 2 mile total out and back hike. The trail continued another mile to the Ramparts Overlook, but I chose not to push my ability to hike at altitude.

The remainder of this blog entry contains some of the pictures I took today. I will put all of the pictures in my Google Photos album when I get better internet access. Upload speeds at this campground are almost non-existent.

Cedar Breaks is a half mile deep bowl in the grown known as an amphitheater.

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Bristle-cone pine trees

Bristle-cone pines overlooking the amphitheater.

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The trail continues around the amphitheater and down onto the white rock area known as Spectra Point

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Some of many wildflowers along the path

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The ground drops straight down through the opening in the white limestone rock.

Field of yellow wildflowers along the road at the visitors center.

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End of Cedar Breaks National Monument entry.