Cedar Breaks National Monument, North View Overlook

Abstract

Cedar Breaks National Monument straddles the western rim of the Markagunt Plateau, and, at over 10,000 feet (3050 m) in elevation, offers spectacular views westward into the adjacent Great Basin. The heart of the monument consists of a series of overlooks along a beautiful, 4-mile-long (6 km), west-facing amphitheater that is eroded into the plateau’s margin. These overlooks are adorned with a fantastic variety of hoodoos and sculpted fins eroded from alternating resistant and soft, jointed and fractured layers of the Claron Formation. Of these overlooks, the North View Overlook encapsulates the entire geologic story preserved at Cedar Breaks—a history not only of the enigmatic Claron Formation, but also of the demise of its depositional basin and eventual burial by volcanic sediments of the Brian Head Formation.