Michael Benanav for The New York Times
The Cedar Mountains, named a federal wilderness area this year.
NEW YORK TIMES,
By MICHAEL BENANAV
A BREEZE rustles the cheatgrass that carpets the rolling highlands in emerald and gold. Atop the ridges, birds call from juniper trees laden with berries. Sometimes, there's a staccato clopping of hooves — wild horses are close by, whether or not they allow themselves to be seen. Otherwise, there is silence.
A sense of untainted solitude is the defining characteristic of the Cedar Mountains in Utah, which rise amid the vast expanse of the Great Salt Lake Desert about 40 miles west of Salt Lake City. The range is small compared with others in the West, about 40 miles long by 6 miles wide — roughly three times the size of Manhattan. But this year it has made big news in Utah.
On Jan. 6, 100,000 acres of the Cedar Mountains became the newest federally designated wilderness area — and the first named in Utah in more than 20 years. This granting of official wilderness status arose from an unusual alliance between environmentalists and Utah's Republican politicians, who rarely find themselves on the same side of any issue. The environmentalists wanted to protect the Cedar Mountains for their own sake. The politicians wanted to block a proposed railroad line to the Goshute Indian Reservation, impeding a Goshute plan to gain income by storing nuclear waste produced in other states (Utah has no nuclear power plants). As in all wilderness areas, mechanized equipment is banned within Cedar Mountain's boundaries — including not just trains, but also cars and even bicycles.
Though you can drive around its perimeter, assuming that the rutted dirt roads aren't sloppy with mud or blocked by walls of heaped-up tumbleweed that sometimes reach heights of seven feet, exploring the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area itself is legal only on foot or on horseback. And once you leave the road — either the perimeter road or one of the two that cross the mountains where passes cut through, it doesn't take long to see that this place would deserve the name "wilderness" even if it weren't official.
Peaks cut a skyline of sharp angles and robust curves, protruding from a central spine that runs almost due north and south. Dry, rocky canyons snake through, opening onto the desert flats that surround the mountain range. Among the clumps of cheatgrass and sage, wildflowers bloom in red, yellow and purple.
ON a day in May, a field of lupine exuded a powerful, honeylike aroma, a red-tailed hawk cruised low and steady, scanning for prey, and 27 ravens swirled in tight formation like a black tornado, either playing in a thermal or circling over a carcass — it's hard to say which. Pronghorn antelopes — big ones — browsed along the base of the mountains and seemed curious when people appeared, holding their ground for a surprisingly long time and letting the humans approach closer than a stone's throw before bounding off with astonishing speed.
"It's just incredible," said Erika Schaumberg, a graphic designer from Washington who was on a Western trip with Phil Satlof, a geographer. "You feel like you have these mountains all to yourself, and you probably do."
The Cedar Mountains have few visitors. In this part of Utah, most people interested in outdoor recreation head for the more dramatic high alpine terrain east of Salt Lake City. And most who do head toward the Cedars drive around them rather than hiking in; they are there hoping to see some of the area's 200 or so wild horses, which graze along the benchlands near the road. Magnificent, muscular animals, these free-roaming mustangs — mostly ink black, smoky gray or chestnut brown — are easy to spot but difficult to approach. Get too close and they spook, turning tail and tossing their manes as they gallop off across the high desert plains. Yet their presence, even from afar, completes the picture of a classic, untamed Western landscape.
Despite the peaceful aura that quickly envelops those who leave their cars behind and hike into the hills, the place has a palpable intensity. More than the snakes and scorpions that dwell there, the most fearsome aspect of the Cedars is their aridity. Water sources are scarce, and the few natural springs either are unreliable or have been piped out of the canyons to fill stock tanks on the flatlands for small herds of cattle. Given the rugged terrain and the heat from May to September, this shortage of water makes multiday backpacking through the Cedars impractical for all but the hardiest of hikers.
Ms. Schaumberg and Mr. Satlof had hoped to backpack through the Cedars but quickly changed their minds once they got there. Instead, they set up a base camp a few hundred yards into the wilderness, carrying gear and water in from their vehicle, and took day hikes in different parts of the mountains. They pitched their tent among juniper trees at the foot of Tabbys Peak, an eye-catching volcanic cone whose slopes are covered in chunks of basalt that look purple in the afternoon light. Nearby is Tabbys Spring, a shallow mudhole that lures wild horses, which regularly trotted right past Ms. Schaumberg and Mr. Satlof's camp.
Cedar Mountains, Utah "It was a perfect solution," Mr. Satlof said. "The hiking here is great, but I wouldn't have wanted to haul a full pack over the mountains only to reach a dry spring."
Their first hike began at Hastings Pass, in the northern end of the range. The road that crosses the mountains there follows a trail first blazed by the Donner Party in 1846 as part of its ill-fated attempt to find a shortcut to California. The pass is nearly 5,800 feet above sea level, and a short walk leads to the top of a serpentine chain of rounded ridges that offer sweeping vistas and tempt hikers with views of the higher peaks farther south.
Among them is Cedar Mountain, the highest peak in the range at 7,713 feet. Ascending it is one of the best day hikes in the wilderness. The easiest approach is up the mountain's western flank, following a series of long, steep ridges in a climb that is strenuous but doesn't require technical skill; it takes about two and a half hours. With each labored step, the hiker sees the desert floor fall away, and the enormous scale of the landscape reveals itself. Wild yellow roses frame views of quartzite pinnacles and burly cliffs. Pink Indian paintbrush speckles the ground. The sun pounds, but its blows are broken by the breeze.
From the top, the views are awesome. The gleaming white salt desert spreads out far, far below, appearing more like ice than like earth. The jagged peaks of the Stansbury Mountains tower to the east, beyond the forbidding-looking and ominously named Skull Valley. Occasionally fighter jets from an Air Force base in Ogden flash over the vast, desolate basin to the west, which is part of the Army's Dugway Proving Grounds. A few conveniently placed trees near the summit offer a shady place for a scenic picnic.
There are no maintained trails leading up the mountain or anywhere else in the Cedar wilderness. Primitive paths beaten by horses, cows and antelopes crisscross many slopes, and vestigial tracks from all-terrain vehicles remain in a few places. Very few signs, even along the roads, indicate locations, directions or points of interest.
"We hope to make the area more user-friendly soon," said Ray Kelsey, outdoor recreation planner at the Bureau of Land Management's Salt Lake City office, "but the wilderness designation is so recent, we've hardly had time to begin."
For now, good maps and an ability to read them — or at least use G.P.S. — are essential. Road maps are useless; much more helpful are the topographical charts produced by the Geological Survey. Those with a scale of 1 to 100,000 are recommended for driving around the range, but for hiking, the more detailed 1-to-24,000-scale maps are preferable. Fortunately for the navigationally unskilled, tree cover in the Cedar Mountains is so sparse that sightlines extend for miles, and there's hardly any chance of becoming lost in a forest. It's relatively easy to stay oriented, though hikers need to make good mental notes of the route they've walked from the car or camp. While the absence of signs and trails makes exploring the Cedars more challenging, it only adds to the sense of being in a wild place.
Dan Washington, also of the Salt Lake office of the Bureau of Land Management, doesn't expect that to feeling to change anytime soon, even if improvements are made. "With the national recognition that comes with being named a wilderness area, a few more people will head to the Cedars, but probably not too many," he said. "You just don't find that kind of solitude in many places these days."
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Soon south salt lake will have it's own skyline just south of salt lake's skyline.
"To Hell with bitter- beer-face Jedi"!!! 
YES!!!!!!!!!!!! PROP 3 PASSES by WIDE MARGIN!!!!!!!!!!!!
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