Guide Duck Creek

Sentier Alpine Pond

La randonnée signature de Cedar Breaks - prairies fleuries, pins bristlecone et bassin subalpin tranquille en deux miles faciles

Alpine Pond Trail est la randonnée classique de Cedar Breaks et la première marche à faire si vous ne connaissez pas encore le monument. La boucle traverse des prairies subalpines, des bosquets de trembles et de pins bristlecone, puis rejoint un petit bassin tranquille au-dessus de 10 000 pieds.

C’est une boucle courte, mais l’altitude et le vent lui donnent plus de présence qu’une distance similaire en vallée.

Détails du sentier

Distance: 2 miles en boucle
Dénivelé: 250 pieds
Difficulté: Facile
Temps: 45 à 90 minutes
Départ: Zone du centre d’accueil et des belvédères
Animaux: Chiens autorisés en laisse sur les zones pavées et certains tronçons proches du parking

La boucle, pas à pas

Chessmen Ridge Overlook, 10,461 ft

Park, use the vault toilet, and look over the rail before you start: the Chessmen are the row of formations to the south. The trail leaves the north end of the lot.
Loop junction

A few hundred yards in. Go left (clockwise) so you reach the rim while the light is still on the rock.
Rim overlook spur

A short spur to the amphitheater edge. The best photograph on the walk. Stay on the spur; the endemic gilia grows in the gravel beside it.
The meadows

The trail drops gently through open meadow, the July flower show. The wet ground near the bottom has shooting star and marsh marigold; the connector to the short loop leaves here.
Alpine Pond, about 10,300 ft

Spring-fed, still, ringed by spruce. Sit for ten minutes. Dragonflies in July, ice at the edges in early June.
The bristlecone leg

The return climbs through open forest past the old bristlecone pines back to the upper junction and the lot. About 250 feet of gain in total.

À quoi s’attendre

La boucle suit une prairie ouverte avant d’entrer dans les bosquets de trembles et de bristlecones. Le bassin lui-même est simple et calme, mais tout le contexte - altitude, vent, ciel immense - rend la balade mémorable.

Au milieu de l’été, les fleurs sauvages peuvent être spectaculaires, et le contraste avec les hoodoos au loin est l’un des plus beaux de la région.

Où se trouve la boucle

The trailhead is the Chessmen Ridge Overlook lot, 2.5 miles north of the visitor center. The pond sits half a mile east of the road in the forest. From the inn it is 16 miles to the visitor center and another 2.5 to the trailhead, about 30 minutes.

The drive from the inn
Highway 148 through the monument
Overlook
Trail point
Visitor center
Campground

Trail points and overlooks along Highway 148. The loop runs between the Chessmen Ridge Overlook pin and the Alpine Pond pin; tap either for its note.

Les fleurs de ce sentier

Nine flowers account for most of what you will see on the loop, in roughly this order through the summer. The bars are the usual bloom windows; the wildflower guide has all twenty species, the endemics on the rim, and the festival schedule.

Approximate bloom weeks for Cedar Breaks wildflowers, late May to mid September
Flower	Weeks from late May to mid September
Silvery lupine	June to Mid Aug. Late June through July.
Aspen bluebells	Mid June to Sept. Late June through August.
Scarlet paintbrush	Late June to Mid Sept. Mid July, but there is some all summer.
Colorado columbine	July to Late Aug. Mid July to early August.
Larkspur	July to Mid Aug. Midsummer, July.
Pretty shooting star	Mid June to Late July. Late June into July.
Marsh marigold	Late May to Late June. Right behind the melting snow, late May into June.
Elkweed	July to Mid Aug. July.
Little sunflower	August to Mid Sept. August.

Wildflower Festival, 2026
Usual bloom window; peaks vary a week or two with the snowpack

Les pins bristlecone

The twisted, half-bare trees on the upper leg of the loop and along the rim are Great Basin bristlecone pines, the species that includes the oldest known living trees on Earth. The park says some of the bristlecones at Cedar Breaks are more than 1,600 years old, which means they were seedlings while Rome was still an empire. They grow on the harshest ground on the rim because nothing else will, put on a fraction of an inch a year, and survive by letting most of the tree die back and keeping a strip of living bark alive. The best grove is the short spur from the Chessmen Ridge lot; the oldest trees are along the South Rim Trail to Spectra Point.

The dead grey spruce you will also notice, here and across the plateau, are Engelmann spruce killed by a spruce beetle outbreak in the 1990s and 2000s. The green coming up between them is the next forest, and the openings the beetles made are part of why the meadows here are so big.

Quand randonner

La fenêtre la plus fiable va de fin mai à début octobre, selon l’ouverture de la route.

Mi-juillet à début août est souvent la meilleure période pour les fleurs sauvages.

Conseils de Duck Creek

Apportez une couche, même les jours chauds.
Partez tôt si vous voulez moins de vent et une lumière plus douce.
Buvez avant d’avoir soif - l’altitude rend l’effort plus sec qu’en vallée.
Combinez avec les belvédères pour faire une demi-journée complète.

Planification du séjour

Alpine Pond est facile à ajouter à un passage par Cedar Breaks ou à une journée de détente depuis Duck Creek. Vous pouvez revenir à l’auberge pour un déjeuner tardif, puis repartir vers Bryce ou Navajo Lake.

Reviewed September 2026

Pourquoi faire confiance à ce guide

Nous écrivons ce guide du point de vue des clients du Duck Creek Village Inn. L’altitude et les dates d’ouverture changent selon la saison - vérifiez toujours les informations officielles avant de partir.