Beste wandelingen
Cedar Breaks-routes per moeilijkheidsgraad, van makkelijke weidewandelingen tot rim-routes met bristlecone-dennen
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Duck Creek-gids
Cedar Breaks National Monument
Op ongeveer 20 minuten van Duck Creek Village Inn - een amfitheater boven de 10.000 voet
In één oogopslag
- Drive time
- About 16 miles and 25 minutes from Duck Creek Village Inn: Highway 14 west, then Highway 148 north
- Entrance fee
- $25 per vehicle for 7 days, $20 per motorcycle, $15 on foot or bike; America the Beautiful passes accepted; cards only
- Elevation
- 10,350 ft at Point Supreme, 10,461 ft at Chessmen Ridge; 10 to 20°F cooler than Zion or Bryce
- Season
- Highway 148 opened May 15 in 2026 and usually closes with snow in mid November. Visitor center open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, late May to mid October. Winter access by snowmobile, ski or snowshoe from the Highway 14 lot.
- Pets
- Allowed on paved areas, parking lots and the paved Sunset Trail only. Not on the Alpine Pond or rim trails.
Cedar Breaks National Monument ligt slechts 20 minuten ten westen van Duck Creek Village, maar het voelt als een andere wereld. Het monument vormt een natuurlijk amfitheater op ruim 10.000 voet, uitgesneden in felgekleurde lagen sedimentgesteente en omringd door bristlecone-dennen, wilde bloemenweiden en donkere alpine lucht. Waar Bryce Canyon lager en breder aanvoelt, is Cedar Breaks compacter, hoger en stiller.
Je bereikt het monument via Highway 148, die vertakt van Highway 14 net buiten Duck Creek Village. De rit is kort, de entree is eenvoudig en de ervaring kan in een halve dag of zelfs minder passen - ideaal als je wilt wandelen, van uitzichtpunten wilt genieten of gewoon een zonsondergang wilt meepakken en terug wilt zijn voor het diner.
De meeste bezoekers beginnen bij het bezoekerscentrum en de Point Supreme-omgeving, rijden langs de rim-uitzichtpunten of wandelen de Alpine Pond Trail. In de zomer voegen wilde bloemen en donkere hemel nog meer toe. In de winter wordt de weg gesloten en verandert het gebied in een sneeuwlandschap voor sneeuwschoentochten en sterrenkijken.
Plan your Cedar Breaks day
One page for each part of the visit, so you can plan around what you care about.
Alpine Pond Trail
De kenmerkende Cedar Breaks-wandeling - bloemenweiden, een subalpiene vijver en bristlecone-dennen in twee makkelijke mijl
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Uitzichtpunten en visitor center
Point Supreme, Sunset View, North View en Chessmen Ridge - alle uitzichtpunten en wat je ziet bij het visitor center
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Zonsondergang en sterrenkijken
De beste zonsondergang van zuidelijk Utah en een International Dark Sky Park - zo plan je een avond bij Cedar Breaks
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Wilde bloemen
Meer dan 250 soorten op 10.000 voet: bloeikalender, geillustreerde veldgids, de twee endemische soorten en het Wildflower Festival in juli
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Actuele omstandigheden
Is de weg open? Live waarschuwingen, openingstijden en dark-sky-programma’s - rechtstreeks van de National Park Service
Bekijk gidsDe rit vanaf het inn
Leave the inn heading west on Highway 14. The road climbs steadily through spruce and aspen, passes the Navajo Lake overlook at mile 8 (worth the pullout), and reaches the Highway 148 junction at mile 12, just under 9,900 feet. Turn right. Highway 148 climbs the last 500 feet through open meadows to the entrance station and the Point Supreme visitor center at mile 15.5. Call it 15.5 miles and 25 minutes; the overlooks continue another 4.6 miles north to the Highway 143 entrance and Brian Head.
In winter the plowing stops at the junction. The lot there is the trailhead for the snowmobile route along the closed highway and for skis and snowshoes, 3.5 miles from Point Supreme. Check Highway 14 road conditions before any shoulder-season trip; our conditions page has the live NPS road status.
- The drive from the inn
- Highway 148 through the monument
- Overlook
- Trail point
- Visitor center
- Campground
The real route from the inn, traced from road geometry: Highway 14 west (solid green) and Highway 148 north through the monument (dashed). Tap any pin for its note and the page that covers it.
Het monument in cijfers
- 2,000+ ft deep from the rim to the amphitheater floor
- 3 mi across the width of the amphitheater
- 10,350 ft at Point Supreme 10,461 ft at Chessmen Ridge
- 2 in every 5 years how fast the rim erodes back
- 1,600+ years the oldest bristlecone pines on the rim
- 250+ wildflowers 269 plant species inventoried
- 30+ ft of snow in a big winter, per the NPS
- 1933 established 6,155 acres; Dark Sky Park since 2017
Depth, width, erosion rate and the bristlecone ages are from the National Park Service; the plant count is the NPS Northern Colorado Plateau Network inventory; establishment, acreage and visitation (688,644 in 2022) from NPS records. The colors are iron oxides rusting the limestone of an ancient lake bed, 50 to 60 million years old, that the Hurricane Fault has been lifting for the last 10 million years.
Why Cedar Breaks works so well from Duck Creek
Most visitors to southern Utah drive past Cedar Breaks on the way to Bryce or Zion and never stop, which is their loss and your gain. From the inn it is the closest of the three parks, there is no shuttle, the lots are manageable on all but the busiest summer evenings, and a $25 pass is good for a week of return trips.
It also fills a different role. Cedar Breaks is the half day you take when you do not want another full-park commitment: up after breakfast, the Alpine Pond loop, a lap of the overlooks, and back at the inn for lunch. Or it is the evening: sunset at Sunset View and a Night Sky Tour at Point Supreme, then a 25-minute drive to a warm bed. Nobody else in the region has that combination.
The elevation helps too. The inn sits at 8,455 feet, so the 1,900-foot climb to the rim is gentle compared with the jump from St. George or Las Vegas, and you are already half acclimated when you step out of the car. The rim is still 10 to 20 degrees cooler than the parks around it, and windier, so the jacket you did not need at the inn comes along anyway.
Zo ziet de zonsondergang eruit vanaf de rand
Three photos from one evening on the rim, 1 June 2026, with the camera's clock on each. The amphitheater faces west, so the light works differently from Bryce: the rock glows an hour before sunset and goes dark as the sun reaches the ridge, and then the sky takes over.
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Fifty minutes out The sun is still high over the Escalante Desert and the amphitheater is lit from the side. This is when the hoodoos show their colors best, and when the lot at Sunset View still has space. -
Sun on the ridge The sun touches the ranges to the west, the sky goes orange, and the amphitheater below drops into shadow. From here on the show is in the sky, not the rock. -
Last light The computed sunset for that date is 8:47 PM. Through the spruce at the rim, the last sliver goes and the temperature starts to fall. Twenty more minutes of color, then the first stars.
Our photos, Sunset View and the rim near Point Supreme, 1 June 2026. Camera clock times, Mountain Daylight Time.
Het bloemenseizoen
Over 250 species bloom on the rim between late May and September, and two of them, Cedar Breaks gilia and Panguitch buckwheat, grow nowhere else. The meadows turn blue with lupine and flax in late June, peak in the first half of July when the park holds its Wildflower Festival (July 3 to 11 in 2026), and go gold with sunflowers in August. Our wildflower guide has a week-by-week bloom calendar and an illustrated field guide to twenty flowers.
Weer op de rand, per maand
The rim is 1,900 feet above the inn and nearly 4,500 feet above Cedar City, and it shows. The park says summer highs run 60 to 70°F with nights in the 30s and 40s, and that snow, sleet and hail can fall in any month. The table is an estimate for 10,350 feet from NOAA 1991 to 2020 normals at the Brian Head station (9,770 ft), adjusted 2°F for the extra elevation. A planning guide, not a forecast; the weather page has the current outlook.
Estimated typical highs and lows at Point Supreme, °F
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | 28° | 30° | 37° | 42° | 53° | 65° | 69° | 67° | 59° | 46° | 36° | 26° |
| Low | 8° | 10° | 15° | 16° | 25° | 34° | 40° | 41° | 33° | 22° | 15° | 8° |
July averages about 69° by day and 40° at night; September 59° and 33°. Greyed months are inside the usual road closure. Afternoon thunderstorms build over the plateau most days from mid July into early September, and the rim is the most exposed ground in the monument, so do the walks in the morning and be near the car by early afternoon.
Wat mee te nemen
- A warm layer and a wind shell, even in July. Summer highs at the rim are 60 to 70°F and the wind is steady; evenings drop into the 30s and 40s.
- Water and sunscreen. The sun through thin air at 10,000 feet burns fast, and there is no potable water in the monument as of this writing.
- Sturdy shoes for the Alpine Pond loop or the rim trail, which hold mud and snow patches into June.
- A wide lens for the amphitheater and a macro for the wildflowers.
- A red-light headlamp, a chair and a thermos if you are staying for sunset or a Night Sky Tour. The walk back to the car is dark.
When to go
Summer (June to August) is the season. The road is open, the visitor center is staffed, ranger programs start June 1, the wildflowers peak in early to mid July, and the Night Sky Tours run every Friday and Saturday. Afternoon thunderstorms build most days from mid July; do the exposed walks in the morning.
Early fall (September to mid October) brings thin crowds, cold clear nights for stargazing, and the aspen turning below the rim in the last ten days of September. The campground closes September 18 and the visitor center in mid October, but the road usually stays open until the first sustained snow, typically mid November.
Late spring (mid May to mid June) is when the road opens, May 15 in 2026. Snow lingers in the shade, the trails are muddy, and the first flowers are just showing. Quiet, and the amphitheater with snow on the fins is worth the drive.
Winter is non-motorized or snowmobile only. The plowing stops at the Highway 14 lot, 3.5 miles from Point Supreme, and the marked snowmobile route follows the closed highway. The NPS runs guided snowshoe walks on select weekends; check the park calendar and our winter guide.
Stay planning
Cedar Breaks is the easiest outing to build a stay around. Use Plan Your Days to pair a Cedar Breaks morning or evening with a Navajo Lake afternoon, or our Cedar Breaks and Navajo Lake itinerary to do both in one day. Compare rooms and cabins, and remember that Bryce Canyon and Zion are each about an hour away, so a three-park week works from this base. The stay near Cedar Breaks page compares the options.
Reviewed September 2026
Why trust this guide
We run the inn 16 miles down the mountain and go up to Cedar Breaks all season. The drive distance and elevation profile were traced from real road geometry; fees, season dates, hours and program schedules come from the National Park Service, checked in September 2026; the weather table is computed from NOAA climate normals; the sunset photos are ours. Conditions change with the snowpack, so cross-check the NPS pages before you drive.
Vragen over Cedar Breaks
Veelgestelde vragen van bezoekers die een korte bergtrip plannen.
Hoe ver is Cedar Breaks van Duck Creek Village?
Cedar Breaks National Monument ligt ongeveer 20 minuten ten westen van Duck Creek Village Inn via Highway 14 en Highway 148. Dat maakt het een van de makkelijkste nationale monumenten om vanuit het dorp te bezoeken.
Is Cedar Breaks een goede dagtrip?
Ja. Je kunt de uitzichtpunten, de Alpine Pond Trail en een zonsondergangsstop in een halve dag doen, of het combineren met Bryce Canyon, dat verder weg ligt maar in dezelfde richting.
Wanneer is Cedar Breaks open?
De weg naar het monument is meestal open van laat in de lente tot in de herfst, maar Highway 148 sluit in de winter. Toegang en programma's hangen af van sneeuw en actuele NPS-informatie.
Hoe hoog ligt Cedar Breaks?
De rim ligt boven 10.000 voet, dus reken op koelere temperaturen en sneller ademen tijdens wandelingen. Dat is precies waarom het landschap hier zo fris en alpien aanvoelt.
Blijf hier, bezoek Cedar Breaks morgen
Boek je kamer of cabin bij Duck Creek Village Inn - een korte rit naar een amfitheater boven de 10.000 voet.