Day Trip to
Brian Head and
Cedar Breaks
in our Model 3

Mark D Larsen
June 26, 2021


A Break among the Cedars
(Click to enlarge)


Tamara’s niece, Haley, is currently in medical school at University of Utah. As part of her coursework during the summers, she is assigned “rotations” at health centers in the smaller towns around the state. This summer she was assigned to assist in Panguitch, just a half-day’s drive north of us, close to the national parks of Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, and the national monument of Cedar Breaks. Now that we are fully vaccinated, we decided to take a day trip to meet them near the latter recreational area to have lunch at the Brian Head ski resort nearby. We charged Correcaminos to 80%, and let Autopilot drive us there. Below are just a few photos and movies from that day.


NOTE: You can click on the following photos to enlarge them, and the movies to play them.

To get to Brian Head, we first had to drive through Cedar Breaks. We've driven there before, but this time the visitor center had been moved while the original was under renovation. Here Tamara is with Moxie at the center.

We then met up with Haley and her husband Charlie, and drove the rest of the way through the park to Brian Head. We had lunch sitting on the balcony of a Tai restaurant. The resort was very crowded that afternoon, as there was a mountain bike festival taking place, with hundreds riding the ski lift with their bikes to then descend the slopes.

After lunch, we decided to return to Cedar Breaks and stop at several of the overlook viewpoints. Tamara took this video while Autopilot was driving us on the road along the canyon’s rim to the first lookout.

We walked a short distance on the pathway to the overlook. The park allows dogs where there is pavement, but not on the other trails.

And here is Charlie, Haley, Tamara, and Moxie, with the red rock formations of the canyon as a backdrop.

We then said our goodbyes to Haley and Charlie, and started the drive back home. You will note in this video as we approached the park entrance that Autopilot freaked out a bit when it detected a rather large SUV coming around a curve toward us. You might have already noticed that there were numerous dead pine trees in the park. Apparently, because the winters are now much milder than in the past, bark beetles are surviving the cold and then eating and destroying the trees, turning them into dry and brittle kindling, ripe for a spark or lightning to start a wildfire.

As we descended the canyon, we pulled over at a viewpoint to see Zion National Park in the distance.

Since I have posted several photos of Tamara, it is only fair to also post one that Tamara took of me and Moxie at that viewpoint, with Zion barely visible behind us.

This is a video as we dropped down farther in the canyon, with impressive rock walls on both sides.

This illustration can give you an idea of the elevation changes in "Canyon Country." You can see where we were at on the Pink Cliffs that form Cedar Breaks and Bryce Canyon. Lower down are the White and Vermillion Cliffs of Zion, and even further down the layers than form the Grand Canyon.

This was the energy readout when we pulled into the garage. As you can see, we only had a 25% charge left when we left Cedar Breaks —which would probably panic an ICE driver unfamiliar with regenerative braking. I knew from experience, however, that the descent would put plenty of kWh back into the battery. By the time we reached home, after driving 84 miles, we still had a 13% charge —about 40 miles to spare!


This was a pleasant, fun day trip! It was great to get out of the house and see some family members after so many months of the pandemic. It whet our appetite to finally take another roadtrip in the near future.