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Show i Cedar Breads - A Pink Clitffed Wonderland I stayed there for nearly two hours watching the sun climb higher in the sky, throwing more and different light reflections on the cliffs. Walking back to the campground, cam-pground, we passed a mother , deer, apprehensively leading her fawn to the shelter of the trees, while ground squirrels and chipmunks peeked at us , from the bushes. Cedar Breaks does not get its full recognition because of its proximity to , Zions National ' Park, and Brianhead , but Cedar Breaks should be seen just for itself. It's well worth it. CEDAR BREAKS The great amphitheatre of Wasatch Limestone at Cedar Breaks National Monument, looking from Point Supreme north to Brian Head Peak. Photo Courtesy of U.S.D.I. National Park Service. By Dorothy E See . "Hell," the Texan exploded when oil was discovered on his ranch, "The cows can't drink ' that stuff." The first man to survey the pink cliffed chasm on I Markagunt Plateau, many have reacted in a similar manner saying, "Well , can't graze the sheep here ", and went away without mentioning his fantastic fan-tastic discovery, thereby losing his place in history as the man who found Cedar Breaks. But that is the luck of Cedar Breaks. Even its name is wrong for it "Cedar" was the misnomer given it by the early settlers because of the junipers growing around the base of the cliffs. "Breaks" in the parlancee of the pioneers meant badlands, when there is nothing bad about the pink spiraled castle-like shapes in the vast amphitheater am-phitheater that make "Mad" King Ludwigs Barvarian Dream Castle look like a small effort But, the, the Dream Castle, breathtaking though it is, is the product of puny man. It took Mother Nature fifty-five million years to create the chasm on the mountain twenty-three twenty-three miles from Cedar City. The last thirteen million years .. were devoted to uplifting the .: area and to volcanic eruptions. Some of these eruptions are ' so recent, only a few million . years or so, that the lava along the road till cannot support Iif$. .' After the Plateau had reached an altitude of more than ten thousand feet JMother Nature decided that was far enough for any tourist to climb to see her handiwork. In 1872, twenty years after its discovery, both the Wheeler and Powell parties made surveys of the region. For the following thirty years, sheep were grazed in the mountain meadows and the timber, great stands of Western Yellow Pine, White Fir, Alpine Fir, Limber Pine, Engelmann Spruce, Douglas Fir and Rocky Mountain Juniper were cut extensively. The area was made part of the Sevier (now Dixie) National Forest in 1905. On August 22, 1933, it was belatedly established as a National Monument under the Department Depart-ment of Interior. The castle-like cliffs are not the only thing reminiscent of the Barvarian Alps. In the summer months the meadows are covered with fragile Alpine vegetation, so delicate that if it is damages, it sometimes takes an entire lifetime for the flowers to grow back. Rare old Bristlecone Pines grow around the rims of the cliffs. One of them, visible from . the Wasatch Ramparts Trail dates back sixteen hundred years. Gooseberry currents, fernlike leaves of wild parsley, columbine and clumps of mountain bluebells with a long growing season that helps to feed the deer and with seeds that feed the birds, grow in wild profusion. Cedar Breaks is lovely at any time but it was my rare privilege to have viewed it as few people ever do. That was because my dog wanted walking at the ridiculoi-s hour of four in the morning. Although it was July, 1 had shivered my way to the brink of the Breaks wondering why they called these four footed tyrants, "Mans Best Friend." There were still big patches of snow under the fir trees and it was cold. Far-below us, the : street lights of Cedar City flickered in the darkness as the town slumbered in nocturnal innocence. A faint glow to. the east cast odd shadows on the i pink walls and rock formations. .. The eerie lighting and the total silence left a sensation of being the only person on earth in the dawn of time. Suddenly, instantly, full light illuminated the scene as the sun gave birth to a new day almost directly over the eleven thousand foot Brianhead, two and one half miles away. Dawn, bursting upon the forty-seven forty-seven shades or pink in the Breaks made a sparkling show that would be impossible for a camera or an artists pallette to capture. The shadings are caused by oxidation or iron and manganese, which combined with the bands of white limestone near the rim, created a blinding effect of brilliant light, gleaming boldly. . "V - t M t MS " t " i '4 I t 1 J ' I VIRGIN NARROWS-A spectacular highway stretches south of St. George as pa rt of 1-15. |