Duck Creek Guide
Over 250 species at 10,000 feet, two of them found nowhere else. When they bloom, where to walk, and how to tell them apart.
For about six weeks every summer the meadows along the Cedar Breaks rim do something the red rock below them cannot: they change every day. Snow that piled twenty feet deep in April melts into ground that, by the first week of July, is blue with lupine and flax, spotted red with paintbrush, and studded with head-high elkweed stalks. The park counts over 250 species of wildflowers in its 6,155 acres, some of them growing nowhere else on Earth, and it throws a festival for them.
This page is the wildflower guide we wanted when we first drove up from the inn: a week-by-week bloom calendar, an illustrated field guide to the twenty flowers you are most likely to meet, the two endemics and where to find them, the four best walks, and the 2026 festival schedule. Cedar Breaks is 25 minutes from our rooms, so a wildflower morning fits before lunch, and a second visit for sunset uses the same seven-day pass.
The season runs about sixteen weeks from the first flowers to the last, and the park's own sign puts the caveat well: heavy snowfall, the intensity and frequency of summer rainstorms, and average temperatures all decide which flowers thrive, and no two seasons are alike. A big snow year pushes everything a week or two later; a dry spring pulls it forward. Read the bars as the usual window and the 2026 festival shading as the park's best guess at peak.
| Flower | Weeks from late May to mid September |
|---|---|
| Springbeauty | |
| Marsh marigold | |
| Cushion phlox | |
| Silvery lupine | |
| Blue flax | |
| Pretty shooting star | |
| Aspen bluebells | |
| Parry primrose | |
| Scarlet paintbrush | |
| Larkspur | |
| Elkweed | |
| Colorado columbine | |
| Markagunt penstemon | |
| Cedar Breaks gilia endemic | |
| Panguitch buckwheat endemic | |
| Mountain coyote mint | |
| Fireweed | |
| Shrubby cinquefoil | |
| Little sunflower | |
| Aster | |
Late May to Mid June
The road opens and the first flowers follow the receding snow: marsh marigold in the wet spots, springbeauty in the meadows, cushion phlox on the rim. Trails are muddy and some north-facing sections still hold snow.
Late June to July
Lupine, aspen bluebells and blue flax turn the meadows blue. Paintbrush starts. Chessmen meadow is at its best about now.
Mid July to August
Everything at once: columbine, paintbrush, lupine, larkspur, elkweed stalks head-high, the endemic gilia and buckwheat on the rim. The Wildflower Festival runs in the first half of July for this reason.
Mid Aug to Late Aug
The meadows go gold with little sunflower and showy goldeneye, fireweed lines the road, and the bluebells keep going. Afternoon storms are at their most reliable.
Sept to Mid Sept
Aster and the last of the sunflowers, then frost. The aspen below the rim begin to turn in the last ten days of the month.
Names and spellings follow the park's own species pages. The drawings are ours, simplified on purpose: enough to tell a shooting star from a paintbrush at trail speed, not a botanical plate. Flowers marked endemic grow only in this part of Utah.
Caltha leptosepala · White
Right behind the melting snow, late May into June
The first big white flower of the season. It often blooms with snow still on the ground a few feet away.
The boggy ground around Alpine Pond and the seeps below Chessmen Ridge as soon as the trail is clear of snow.
Claytonia lanceolata · Pink
The first week or two after snowmelt
Tiny and pink, and one of the first flowers to open. Easy to walk past unless you look down.
Anywhere the snow has just left, especially the campground meadow.
Phlox pulvinata · White
June
A low mat of white to pale lavender flowers that hugs the rock where nothing else grows yet. One of the late June early bloomers.
The exposed ground along the Spectra Point trail and the rim edge at Point Supreme.
Lupinus argenteus · Blue
Late June through July
A member of the pea family. The flowers attract hummingbirds and are an important food source for butterflies, according to the park sign.
Every meadow on the Alpine Pond loop, and the roadside between Point Supreme and Chessmen Ridge.
Mertensia arizonica · Blue
Late June through August
Despite the species name, Mertensia arizonica is most abundant in Utah. Drooping clusters of blue bells that bloom for most of the summer.
Just about everywhere. The park calls it one of its most common flowers.
Linum lewisii · Blue
Late June and early July
Five papery blue petals that drop by afternoon; each plant opens new ones the next morning. Come before noon.
Chessmen meadow, which the park brochure says turns bright blue with it in early summer.
Castilleja miniata · Red
Mid July, but there is some all summer
The red is not the flower but the bracts around it. Paintbrush is a partial parasite that taps the roots of neighboring plants, which is why you cannot transplant it.
The meadows on the Alpine Pond loop and along the rim trail south of the visitor center.
Aquilegia caerulea · White
Mid July to early August
Usually blue and white elsewhere in the Rockies. At Cedar Breaks the flowers tend toward pale lavender and white, which the park attributes to the local population.
The shaded forest sections of the Alpine Pond loop and the ground below the bristlecones on Spectra Point.
Delphinium sp. · Purple
Midsummer, July
Deep purple, with the spur on the back of each flower that gives it its name. Toxic to cattle, which is why old ranchers on the plateau hated it.
The wet meadow below Alpine Pond and the drainage on the campground trail.
Dodecatheon pulchellum · Pink
Late June into July
Pink petals swept straight back from a dark point, like a badminton shuttlecock. Bees "buzz pollinate" it by vibrating the flower until it releases pollen.
The marshy edge of Alpine Pond.
Frasera speciosa · Green
July
The most dramatic plant in the park. It grows a rosette of leaves for years, then sends up a single stalk of four-petaled greenish flowers with purple spots that guide pollinators to the nectar, and dies after it seeds. The park sign notes each flower has both male and female parts.
Standing head-high above the grass in the meadows near Point Supreme and along the Alpine Pond loop.
Ipomopsis tridactyla · White
Mid July to August
Found only in southern Utah, and the park says only at Cedar Breaks. A small, sprawling plant with three-lobed leaves and white trumpet flowers, easy to miss and one of the reasons the park asks you to stay on the trail.
The rim edge itself, in the gravel between Point Supreme and Spectra Point. Look down, not out.
Eriogonum panguicense · Pink
Mid July to August
Endemic to southwestern Utah and found nowhere else in the world, per the park sign, unlike its widespread cousin sulphur buckwheat. Pink and cream flower heads on a tight cushion of leaves.
Cushions on the pale rim gravel near Spectra Point, often right beside the gilia.
Monardella odoratissima · Purple
Late July
Crush a leaf and it smells like mint. The park sign credits it with attracting butterflies, which use the nectar as a food source.
Sunny ground along the South Rim Trail toward Spectra Point.
Chamerion angustifolium · Pink
Late July and August
Magenta spires that open from the bottom up, so you can read the season off one plant. Edible, and per the park sign valued by deer, elk, grizzly bears (elsewhere), livestock, and people.
Road edges on Highway 148 and the cleared ground around the campground.
Potentilla fruticosa · Yellow
Midsummer
Named for its five-part leaves. A knee-high shrub covered in yellow five-petaled flowers, the same plant sold as a garden shrub in town.
The campground meadow and around Alpine Pond.
Penstemon leiophyllus · Purple
July
Named for the plateau you are standing on. Tubular blue to purple flowers with five lobes, built for bees, which is why you will see them crawling inside.
Along the rim trail and the roadside meadows.
Primula parryi · Pink
Early to mid July
Big magenta flowers with a yellow eye on a stalk that can reach a foot. It smells faintly of skunk up close; admire it from standing height.
The seep below the Alpine Pond outlet.
Helianthella uniflora · Yellow
August
The late show. When the lupine and columbine are done, the sunflowers and showy goldeneye take over the meadows for the rest of summer.
The big meadows near Point Supreme and along the road, which the brochure says it turns gold in August.
Symphyotrichum sp. · Purple
Late August into September
One of the last flowers still blooming in September, pale purple with a yellow center. The season ends with aster and the first gold in the aspen.
Roadsides and meadow edges after the first frosts.
Most of what blooms at Cedar Breaks also blooms on other high plateaus in the West. Two plants do not. Cedar Breaks gilia is, according to the park, found only here, a sprawling little plant with three-lobed leaves and white trumpet flowers that lives in the bare limestone gravel right at the rim. Panguitch buckwheat is endemic to southwestern Utah, a cushion of gray-green leaves with pink and cream flower heads, and it shares the same few yards of ground. The Northern Colorado Plateau inventory lists seven rare plants in the monument in all, including Reveal's paintbrush and Cedar Breaks goldenbush, and the endangered Arizona willow in the wet ground below the rim.
Both endemics flower from mid July into August, and both are small enough to step on. That is the practical reason the park is strict about staying on the South Rim Trail: the gilia grows an inch from the tread, and a shortcut to a viewpoint can take out a plant that exists in no other place. Bring a macro lens, kneel at the edge of the trail, and look down.
All four start from a paved lot on Highway 148 and none takes more than a couple of hours. In festival week the ranger walks pick whichever meadow is peaking; outside it, this is the order we would do them.
The meadow walk. Lupine, bluebells, paintbrush and columbine line the trail, elkweed stands above the grass, and the marshy pond edge has shooting star and marsh marigold. Do the loop clockwise so you reach the meadows with the sun behind you. There is a one-mile short loop if the altitude is talking.
Trail detailsThe endemics live here, in the gravel at the rim edge, along with cushion phlox early in the season and columbine under the bristlecone pines. Look down as much as out. This is the trail the park most wants you to stay on, because the gilia grows an inch from the tread.
Trail detailsA paved, level path through the campground meadow across the road from Point Supreme. The easiest wildflower walk in the monument, with cinquefoil, bluebells and, in August, the sunflowers. Fine for strollers and anyone who does not want to breathe hard at 10,000 feet.
Trail detailsBetween Point Supreme and Chessmen Ridge the road crosses open meadows that turn blue with flax and lupine in late June and gold with sunflowers in August. Use the paved pullouts and stay on the shoulder; the meadows are fragile and the rangers do write tickets for driving onto them.
Trail detailsTrail points and overlooks along Highway 148. Tap a pin for the note and the page that covers it. The green dashed line is the road through the monument; the drive from the inn is on the main Cedar Breaks guide.
The park has run a Wildflower Festival every July for years, timed to the peak. The 2026 edition runs July 3 to 11. Ranger-led wildflower walks leave at 10:30 a.m. daily, with a second walk at 2 p.m. on Saturdays; they are under a mile, free, and you sign up in person at the visitor center the same day. A ranger gives a short talk at 1:30 p.m. daily at Point Supreme Overlook on how these plants survive a ten-week growing season. Booths at the visitor center plaza run Fridays and Saturdays, kids can do a wildflower scavenger-hunt bingo for a sticker, and the Blooms of the Breaks art contest takes entries all month by email.
Everything is included in the $25 vehicle entry, which is also good for seven days, so a festival walk on Saturday morning and a Night Sky Tour on Saturday evening cost the same as one visit. The festival dates move each year with the snowpack; the park announces them in spring on its festival page, and we update this page when they do.
Daily during the festival
Visitor center open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Entry $25 per vehicle, cards only.
The rim at Cedar Breaks gets about 30 inches of precipitation a year, most of it as snow, and the park says snowfall can exceed 30 feet. The road closes in November and the visitor center reopens in late May. Between the last drift and the first hard frost the meadows have roughly ten to twelve weeks to leaf out, flower, get pollinated and set seed, so everything that can bloom does it in the same few weeks. That is why July at Cedar Breaks looks like a garden planted on purpose, and why a late-melting year compresses the whole show into an even shorter window.
The plants have their own tricks. Elkweed spends years as a low rosette storing energy, then flowers once on a stalk taller than you and dies. Paintbrush taps the roots of its neighbors for water. Blue flax opens a fresh set of petals every morning because the afternoon wind shreds the old ones. And the pollinators, which the park's sign says the flowers cannot reproduce without, work the meadows only while it is warm, which at this elevation means late morning to mid afternoon. Plan your walk for the same hours.
Reviewed September 2026
We are 25 minutes down the mountain and walk these meadows every summer. Species names and the festival schedule come from the National Park Service's Cedar Breaks pages and its Common Wildflowers brochure; the endemic and pollinator notes are from the park's own trailside sign, which we photographed; the bloom windows combine the brochure's timing with the Iron County visitor bureau's notes and the festival dates. Bloom timing shifts with the snowpack, so treat the calendar as a guide and the visitor center as the authority for any given week.
Peak dates, the festival, the endemics, rules, and what to wear.
Early to mid July in a typical year. The first flowers follow the melting snow in late May, the meadows turn blue with lupine, flax and bluebells in late June, everything peaks in the first half of July, and sunflowers carry August. The park schedules its Wildflower Festival for the peak; in 2026 that is July 3 to 11.
July 3 to 11, 2026. Ranger-led wildflower walks leave at 10:30 a.m. daily and 2 p.m. on Saturdays, there is a ranger talk at 1:30 p.m. daily at Point Supreme Overlook, and booths run at the visitor center plaza on Fridays and Saturdays. Everything is free with the $25 vehicle entry. The dates move a week or so each year with the snowpack.
The park's trailside sign says over 250 species of wildflowers; the National Park Service plant inventory lists 269 vascular plant species in the monument, including trees and grasses. Some exist nowhere else in the world.
Two are named on the park sign: Cedar Breaks gilia (Ipomopsis tridactyla), which the park says grows only here, and Panguitch buckwheat (Eriogonum panguicense), endemic to southwestern Utah. Both are small plants of the bare rim gravel near Point Supreme and Spectra Point. Reveal's paintbrush and Cedar Breaks goldenbush are two more rare plants the park monitors.
The Alpine Pond loop from Chessmen Ridge Overlook, two miles through meadows and forest to a subalpine pond. For the endemic species walk the South Rim Trail from Point Supreme toward Spectra Point and watch the gravel at the rim edge. The half-mile Campground Trail is the flat, accessible option.
No. Picking flowers or removing anything from a national monument is prohibited, and the park asks visitors to stay on trails so this year's flowers can seed next year's. The endemics grow right at the edge of the tread.
No. Pets are allowed only on paved areas and in parking lots at Cedar Breaks, plus the paved Sunset Trail between Point Supreme and Sunset View. The Alpine Pond and rim trails are off limits to dogs.
Layers. Summer highs at the rim are 60 to 70°F and the wind is steady; mornings can be in the 40s. Sturdy shoes for muddy trail sections, a hat and sunscreen because the sun is strong through thin air, water, and a rain shell for the afternoon storms.
Yes. The meadows go gold with little sunflower and showy goldeneye, fireweed lines the road, and the bluebells keep going. The columbine and lupine are mostly done by mid August. By mid September only asters are left, and the aspen below the rim start to turn.
Lower. Duck Creek Village sits at 8,400 feet, so the meadows around the village and Duck Creek Pond bloom two to three weeks ahead of the rim, in June. Staying at the inn lets you catch both in one trip.
The rest of the Cedar Breaks guide.
All four Cedar Breaks trails compared, from the flat meadow loop to the rim walk through 1,600-year-old bristlecone pines
See best hikes
The signature Cedar Breaks walk: wildflower meadows, a spring-fed pond, and bristlecone pines in two easy miles from Chessmen Ridge
See alpine pond trail
Point Supreme, Sunset View, Chessmen Ridge, and North View in driving order, plus the new visitor center and the campground
See overlooks & visitor centerTurn a wildflower morning into a full day.
Rooms for an early start, cabins for a slower week.
Rooms with breakfast or cabins with a kitchen at Duck Creek Village Inn. Walk the wildflowers in the morning, watch the stars at night, sleep at 8,400 feet in between.
