Cedar Breaks Hiking & Wildflowers

Kent and I headed to the high country of Cedar Breaks National Monument today. It is peak season for the Wildflower Festival, with quite a variety in bloom. We hiked a few of the trails taking in the views of the colorful amphitheater. Located atop the Markagunt Plateau there was still snow visible in places. Cedar Breaks just opened two weeks ago due to the heavy winter snowfall. It was a fun day enjoying the cool 60 degree temperatures!

Cedar Breaks north entrance

Looking towards BrianHead Peak

The road we traveled

Lanceleaf Goldenweed

Chessmen Ridge view

We hiked to Spectra Point

Bristlecone pines

Cushion Phlox

Cedar Breaks is located in the high country

The Amphitheater

Columbine

Alpine Pond

Visitor Center

A Fun Weekend in Southern Utah

Kent and I set out on an adventure yesterday morning. We were going to take a shortcut through some scenic country to fish at a creek we frequent once a year. We ran into a few obstacles and had to change our route, but that just added to our fun. We fished at Duck Creek instead. The wildflowers were amazing! In the evening we enjoyed listening to Cold Creek Bluegrass Band at an outdoor concert with some friends and it was really good! Sunday afternoon we had a blast tubing the Virgin River. It was so much fun I can't wait to go again!

The high country offers beautiful wildflowers

Couldn't pass up walking through the fields of flowers

Columbine are one of my favorite flowers.  I guess bees like them, too!

The Columbine were in full bloom

Of course there's still snow to be found, after our heavy winter!

Lush grasses can't hide the flowers

So many flowers

Indian Paintbrush

This is what we came upon . . . puddles and boulders, not good at all.  Funny thing is, the name of this road is Red Desert . . . we opted to turn around

Couldn't pass up this cute little flower

Tippets Valley road was no better.  Not only were there leaning trees, the road up ahead was full of downed trees from our heavy winter

Meadows were everywhere

I imagine the deer gather here, we did see some down the road

Duck Creek.  Yes we even saw a duck!  Kent almost stepped on its' nest and the duck flew away!

Tahoe enjoyed watching us fish and drinking from the cool creek

How does one get to the other side of the creek . . . like this

The creek was running high and crystal clear

We brought home three nice trout for our Sunday meal

Cold Creek Bluegrass Band . . . they were great!

Sunday afternoon, tubing on the Virgin River

What a fun way to spend the afternoon . . . talk about refreshing!

Zion and Springdale were full of people, we had the river practically to ourselves!

We went under two bridges and passed by some very expensive homes on our two mile float

Sign on the first bridge, telling us how much farther to our destination