Cedar Breaks is a series of vast amphitheatres eroded to a depth of
2,000 feet into the Pink Cliff formation at the summit of the Markagunt
Plateau and covering an area of approximately sixty square miles in the
Sevier National Forest. Its forested rim, 10,300 feet in elevation, has
been etched back into Blowhard Mountain and adjacent eminences; and a
short distance to the north the blunted volcanic crest of Brian Head
rises 900 feet higher, affording a panorama of practically all of
southern Utah, Nevada and northern Arizona.
Within its limitless labyrinths countless millions of grotesque and
magnificent architectural forms, anointed with all the colors of the
spectrum, flash into the eyes of the beholder. The erosional structures
are blends of Egyptian and massive medieval Gothic walls, modified in a
thousand surprising and original details, and rising generally from
far-flung, wedge-shaped base courses of white and orange. The colors
change marvelously in response to the sun; pink is dominant, though, at
times, orange tones seem to prevail. In broad aspect the color scheme is
pink, red, orange, yellow, white, lavender and purple, with intermediate
tints and hues that would form a dictionary of pigments; and on the
countless scalloped slopes appears the green of spruces, firs and pines.
An artist has counted more than sixty tints in Cedar Breaks.
There are six or seven great amphitheatres, semicircular or
three-quarter circles in shape, with sharp ridges radiating from rim to
center; the few trails into the abysmal serrate basins are faint and
obscure, yet the descent with a guide offers unsuspected marvels; then
only does one comprehend the immensity and the variety of Cedar Breaks.
Along the rims are several easily reached viewpoints, among them Point
Supreme and Point Perfection. Conspicuous in the welter of forms below
are innumerable red, castellated bastions in parallel rows; long,
writhing dragon-like forms of pure white; and huge sprawling dinosaurs
covered with blood. For all its beauty, the place might appropriately
have been the habitat of prehistoric monsters. The panoramas westward
across the deserts of the Great Basin are notably fine.
[Illustration: _On the Rim, Cedar Breaks_]
In vastness, in variety of color, in wild grandeur, Cedar Breaks is the
greatest of Utah’s painted amphitheatres.