Iron County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Iron County

Ten thousand three hundred and fifty feet of elevation at Cedar Breaks National Monument's rim parking — a high enough perch that the small NM closes to all vehicle access from late October through late May or early June every year as snowpack accumulates 12-15 ft deep on the Markagunt Plateau, the longest seasonal closure of any US national monument east of California per NPS regional operations summaries. The amphitheater that the rim road overlooks is 2,000 ft deep and 3 miles across, eroded into the same Claron Formation pink-and-orange limestone that produces the more famous and more crowded Bryce Canyon hoodoos 60 miles east, but at a higher elevation and with a fraction of Bryce's visitation. The Markagunt Plateau itself is a Tertiary-age volcanic-and-sedimentary highland that erosion has dissected into the modern southwestern Utah High Plateau country; the Cedar Breaks rim sits on the western escarpment where the plateau drops sharply to the Cedar Valley. Iron County's 3,298 sq mi wrap Cedar Breaks NM, Cedar City (population 35,235, the county seat and home of Southern Utah University, host since 1962 of the Utah Shakespeare Festival's annual June-October season in the open-air Tony Award-winning Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre and the adjacent indoor Anes Studio Theatre and Randall L.

Jones Theatre), Brian Head Resort (Utah's only ski resort with a summit elevation above 11,000 ft, summit 11,307 ft, with the highest base elevation of any North American ski area at 9,600 ft), and the Dixie National Forest's southern Cedar City Ranger District. Point Supreme Campground inside Cedar Breaks NM accepts rigs to 35 ft on 25 no-hookup sites for the brief June-September snow-free season — and even within that window, the campground's 10,300-ft elevation produces overnight lows near freezing in any month and full freeze-overs in late August. Mammoth Springs USFS Campground (elevation 8,500 ft, on UT-14 between Cedar City and Cedar Breaks) is the slightly-lower-elevation alternative high-altitude base with rigs to 35 ft accommodated. Dixie NF's Cedar City Ranger District permits 14-day dispersed camping at signed sites along Forest Roads 057 and 080 with rigs to 30 ft. Cedar City Municipal Code prohibits overnight RV street parking downtown; commercial RV-friendly bases line I-15.