Cedar Breaks is Newest Dark Sky Park

I have no idea what Toyota considers too hot for the RAV4, but 266 degrees is too much for me. While I liked the RAV4 for a number of reasons (and hated it for others), I now tow with a 2016 Tacoma Off Road. Typical towing transmission temperature is 194 degrees, with the highest I've hit is 228 on a very long, slow climb.

Yikes, Jon! At what temp does the trans fluid start to break down?? I don't think I have ever seen the temp go above 220 on my Tacoma, but then again, in really tough conditions I am rarely watching my Scangauge! ;)

I towed my Escape 17B (3010 lbs loaded) to Cedar Breaks on UT 143 & hit the highest transmission temperature the RAV4 had experienced (266 degrees, but no warning light). Parts of the climb was down to 1st gear...

pnichols wrote:
Dan,

I wonder how tricky the road to Cedar Breaks is when trying to get there using one's "whole RV'ing" setup?

We passed up visiting Cedar Breaks once, thinking that we shouldn't try go up there in our small Class C RV. Maybe we should have tried it anyway. The Cedar Breaks altitude is nothing as we've so far traveled up to 11,300 feet in our RV ... it's that I don't like to inconvenience the day trippers around us when we travel on narrow, curvy roads that would otherwise be no problem for us.

I've towed a wide assortment of different trailers and 5ers up the road and it's not an issue. You can easily keep up with the flow of traffic if you have the power. hwy 14 out of Cedar city is the recommended route, but for a couple years hwy 143 was the only option because of a landslide.

As for the Dark Sky thing, Cedar breaks itself isn't all that dark as you can see the glow from cedar city. Drop down to some of the campgrounds on the East slope though and things are fantastic for star gazing.

I've always wanted to get to Cedar Breaks for snowshoeing -- they say it's great -- but so far have not been able to make it happen.

I traveled that way while towing a 17' Burro, and other than the thin air I don't recall any challenging highway situations. Even though 10th of June, there were small patches of unmelted snow in the park. It's like a mini Bryce Canyon.

Surprising that they didn't make it a dark sky park before this!

Dan,

I wonder how tricky the road to Cedar Breaks is when trying to get there using one's "whole RV'ing" setup?

We passed up visiting Cedar Breaks once, thinking that we shouldn't try go up there in our small Class C RV. Maybe we should have tried it anyway. The Cedar Breaks altitude is nothing as we've so far traveled up to 11,300 feet in our RV ... it's that I don't like to inconvenience the day trippers around us when we travel on narrow, curvy roads that would otherwise be no problem for us.

Have to agree - Utah is my favorite "dark" state (actually, one of my favorites, period.)

Death Valley is now designated as a Dark Sky Park", and parts of it is dark, but here is an 31 minute image at the Texas Springs (no generators) campground that shows how much light there is from the campers: