There used to be a trail downward in Cedar Breaks

By Lynn Arave
CEDAR Breaks and Bryce Canyon were in a hot competition in the early 20th Century. When it was cover, Bryce won and gained National Park status, while Cedar Breaks remains a National Monument to this day.
The two parks are somewhat similar. However, Bryce Canyon has many trails downward,  that penetrate its interior, while Cedar Breaks has none.
It didn't used to be that way.
According to the Beaver County News newspaper of July 15, 1927, there used to be a trail downward in Cedar Breaks.
The reported stated:
"At present comparatively few viewers of the Breaks follow a guide down the uncertain trails of the scalloped slopes into the midst of the columns, corridors, painted buttresses, colonnades, natural bridges, stairways, organs, alabaster shrines, altars, sculptured figures of fauns, satyrs, eagles, lions. Christian martyrs, Gothic cathedrals, and Grecian temples. Only a trip to the bottom can impress one with the full immensity, variety, and grandeur of the Cedar Breaks. But to me the most inspiring views are seen from Point Perfection and Point Supreme of the rim from which the out-flung bastions, buttresses, towers parapets and craggy spires are not lost in the symphony of color the delightful pink and white of the terraces mingled with tints of orange, yellow, lavender, purple, ivory, ruby and vermilion in all their intermediate shadings. One is reminded of ancient Greece and Rome by the glorified temples . and acropolises moldering in rosy marbled ruins,
 the report concluded.
So, likely this only trail, perhaps even precarious in its prime, is gone -- probably eroded away.
-There is a long. long path into Cedar Breaks from below, on the Cedar City side. This path begins at the Crystal Springs Trailhead, about 7 miles east of Cedar City, along Highway 14. It is 14-18 miles roundtrip and strenuous.