Another Hidden Utah Gem: Pine Park
Panorama overlooking Pine Park at sunset.
Tucked away at the terminus of a winding gravel road in the Dixie National Forest near the Utah/Nevada border, Pine Park would probably be a beloved national monument or state park were it located literally anywhere other than Southern Utah. We’ve been fortunate to come across quite a few places that fit this profile: stunning, unique, reasonably accessible, and—here’s the big one—empty. Places like Zion National Park may be bursting at the seams, but vast swaths of Southern Utah remain deliciously deserted. On a warm and beautiful weekend in early May, we had Pine Park pretty much all to ourselves!
Large Ponderosa Pines complement the smooth knobs of white tuff.
The main draw at Pine Park are the spectacular rock formations carved into the Tuff of Honeycomb Rock. Tuff is a deposit of consolidated volcanic ash combined with rock, mineral, and glass fragments that forms only in very explosive volcanic eruptions. Pine Park sits on the margin of some of the most voluminous and expansive deposits of tuff in the world. Collectively, the thousands of feet of tuff scattered across large swaths of Nevada and western Utah represent a time when, for lack of a better descriptor, all hell was breaking loose across what is now the Great Basin. The Tuff of Honeycomb Rock is just a hair under 12 million years old, and thus one of the youngest deposits from this intense and violent episode of volcanism.
While the backstory of the tuff is intriguing, the real allure is the wonderland of creamy white spires, domes, and hoodoos emerging from the otherwise nondescript juniper, ponderosa, and piñon pine forest. Weathering and erosion have sculpted a masterpiece at Pine Park. In many places, the architecture almost resembles Bryce Canyon, albeit whitewashed, and with no maintained trails (several Forest Service trails wind through this area, according to the official map, but we had difficulty following them for any more than a hundred yards past the trailhead) the many pockets of eroded tuff are truly a blast to explore.
The Ponderosa’s don’t require much soil to gain a foothold in small depressions between ridges of tuff.
This species of lupine (Lupinus aridus?) seemed to love the gravelly, sandy soil produced by weathering of the tuff.
Fantastic rock formations immediately adjacent to our campsite.
The tall, stately Ponderosas and a small stream give Pine Park a high-altitude feel, but in reality it sits at just 5700 feet above sea level, plenty low and warm enough for a plethora of wildflowers to be in full bloom during our visit:
Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva) are abundant on long-ago burned slopes above Pine Park, now home to open grasslands.
A claret cup cactus (Echinocereus triglochidiatus) in full bloom. I’m fully aware that the color appears somewhat enhanced on this photo, but it’s not; the claret cup flower really is that brilliant!
The lupines were everywhere.
Everywhere!
Multicolored boulders litter a chute in the Tuff of Honeycomb Rock.
Zach Schierl Photography 