Touring the West – Cedar Breaks National Monument
Touring the West – Cedar Breaks National Monument – Images by Will Parson
When it’s 100 degrees in most of Utah you might do well to make the steep drive to Cedar Breaks National Monument just for the cool mountain air. The heat at Zion National Park in the middle of July makes it worth struggling up a windy road through Dixie National Forest to reach Cedar Breaks at an elevation of 10,000 feet. I welcomed the change in scenery — Cedar Breaks was crisp and more peaceful than heavily-populated Zion.
There were only a couple cars in the parking lot the morning we left Zion and reached Cedar Breaks. Liz and I were passing by on the way from Zion to Capitol Reef, but were enticed to join a wildflower tour guided by a young National Park Service ranger named Russ. Russ admitted he wasn’t an expert on flowers, but we were more than happy with his extensive knowledge of the area’s natural history.
Cedar Breaks is an interesting sight (just look it through the Google satellite). The 1500-year-old Bristlecone Pine trees tumble into the slowly eroding limestone breaks at a pace measured in centuries. These Bristlecones are just middle-aged compared to the 4,000-year-old specimens in California’s White Mountains, but at least anyone can approach the trees at Cedar Breaks and feel their stubby needles.
A Bristlecone Pine attracts a butterfly at Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah.
Passing the Bristlecones prompted a discussion with Ranger Russ about ancient trees. Though individual Bristlecones can live to 5,000 years, clonal species like Aspen and Spruce can live much longer. Cedar Breaks is home to Quaking Aspen, which is the same species as a grove in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest that is at least 80,000 years old. Actually, that Aspen grove, known as Pando, may be as much as a million years old. And, at 6,615 pounds, Pando is the largest living organism on the planet.
If you’re into old trees and photography you’ll love The Oldest Living Things in the World project by artist/photographer Rachel Sussman. She goes around the world with biologists and documents organisms of all kinds that are at least 2,000 years old. I tried to find footage of Sussman’s recent TED talk (coincidentally held the same week I visited Cedar Breaks). Here is her website.
“Touring the West” is an ongoing travel series by Will Parson on MeridianCollective.org that will feature photos, text and video from his three weeks on the road in July. Find previous installments below.
