The pond Highland
A city pond that the state stocks and the state samples
Highland Glen Park, and the water at the middle of it
A listed community fishery at 4800 Knight Avenue, stocked with rainbow trout and channel catfish, fished from the bank on a two fish limit, with a sand beach, sand volleyball, a hundred seat pavilion and one of Highland's two doors onto the paved Murdock Canal Trail. The rules, the hours, the reservation, and the state monitoring page that decides whether anybody should be swimming this week.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
Start here
One pond, four uses and a state agency behind two of them
Highland Glen Park is a compact city park built around a pond at 4800 Knight Avenue on the east side of Highland, next to Lone Peak High School, and the pond is the most used piece of public water in town. You can fish it, swim off a sand beach, put a paddleboard or kayak on it, play sand volleyball beside it, or use the parking lot as a door onto the paved Murdock Canal Trail. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources lists it as a community fishery, which means the state stocks it, and the same water shows up on the state fishing listing under a second address at 10222 Hidden Oak Drive.
The park does more than its size suggests. There is a sand beach on one edge of the water, a sand volleyball court, a playground, restrooms and picnic tables with grills, a large grassy field, and a pavilion that seats a hundred and can be booked. Next door is the Highland Glen Bike Park, a small pump track for mountain bikes. And the parking lot opens straight onto the seventeen mile paved trail that runs the bench, with a long view of Lone Peak from the water.
The uses do not overlap as neatly as that list makes them sound. Anglers want the early hours and the far bank. Paddlers want the beach and a calm afternoon. Swimmers want a hot day and a clean sample. Riders want the parking lot and nothing else. Knowing which of these you are before you arrive decides where to leave the car and what time to turn up. Directions to the park: open in Google Maps.
The park in numbers
2
fish, the community water daily limit
100
seats in the reservable pavilion
Dawn to dusk
daily park hours, which are also the fishing hours
1 of 2
Highland trailheads on the paved Murdock Canal Trail
The fishery
A stocked community water, with a limit that surprises people
A community fishery is a state program for small, easy to reach waters, and the rules that come with it are tighter than the ones on a reservoir. Here is what applies at this pond.
Utah resets its fishing rules every year and community water rules differ from the general statewide ones, so read the current state guidebook for the season you are fishing.
The practical version is that this is a bank fishery for people who want an hour rather than an expedition. The trout do their best work in spring and again in fall when the water is cool, the catfish come on through the summer and are worked off the bottom, and the bass and bluegill are a bonus rather than the point of the place. Everything is fished from the grass, which means a folding chair is more useful here than a boat.
It also means a license and a limit are the whole of the paperwork. Two fish is not many, and it is deliberately not many, because the program exists so that a pond inside a city can keep producing for the next person who walks down to it. Anyone used to a reservoir limit should read the community rules before assuming.
The water quality question
This pond has a state results page, and it is the only thing worth trusting
The single most useful fact about Highland Glen is that it is monitored. Under the name Highland Glen Reservoir it sits on the Utah Department of Environmental Quality's recreational water monitoring program, with its own page carrying every sample result and every advisory that has been issued on it. Very few small city ponds anywhere in the state have that, and it turns a guessing game into a lookup.
The history on that page is honest and it is mixed. This water carried E. coli advisories through the summer of 2023, with the advisory continuing after further detections. In October 2025 a harmful algal bloom put it under a warning advisory. In late August 2026 the Utah County Health Department issued another harmful algal bloom warning advisory on it, which is the pattern here: the blooms tend to show up in the warm months and ease as the water cools.
That is exactly why the state page and the county health department are worth checking rather than trusting a photo from a different July. A warning advisory does not lock the park, and fishing and the trail carry on, but it does mean nobody should be swimming or paddling until it lifts, and pets should stay out of the water too.
The operative rule for a visitor is simple. The state page carries the sample results and the Utah County Health Department issues the advisories that actually close the water, and neither of them is a sign at the beach. If anybody in your group intends to get in, look it up on the morning rather than on the strength of a photograph taken in a different July.
There is no lifeguard, and the swimming answer can change inside two weeks in midsummer. Swimming at Highland Glen is at your own risk in the plainest sense: no lifeguard is on duty and the city does not staff the beach. On top of that, whether the water is safe to enter is set by state sampling and county advisories rather than by anything visible at the park, and this pond has been under both an E. coli advisory and a harmful algal bloom warning advisory in past seasons, including a bloom advisory in late August 2026. Check the Utah Department of Environmental Quality page and the Utah County Health Department for this water on the day, and keep pets out of any water you would not get into yourself.
A small city pond with its own state results page is worth more than a small city pond with a nice photograph.
Around the water
A beach, a court, a pavilion and a trailhead in the same parking lot
The pond gets the attention and the ground around it is the reason people stay for an afternoon. Here is what is on the site and what each piece asks of you.
The pavilion is the only paid piece: twenty dollars for a half day and forty for a full day for residents, seventy and a hundred for non-residents. Those rates are set each year, so confirm them with the city before you plan a booking, and remember the reservation covers the pavilion only, with the rest of the park open to everybody.
Where it ranks
Second on the list
The ranked nine puts this park behind only the July celebration, and the entry sets out why it beats everything available every week.
The ranked listThe other door
Mitchell Hollow
Highland's second trailhead on the same corridor, about two and a half miles west, with a road story standing on it.
Read the pageThe other water
Utah Lake
The body of water at the bottom of the bench, which is a different subject with a different advisory system and its own page.
Read the guideWhere this sits
The eastern end of a city about four miles across
Highland Glen is at one end of Highland and the disc golf hill is at the other, with the paved trail joining them. Here is what picks up from here.
The far end
Beacon Hill Park
Eighteen holes with two tees to a basket, a nine hole putting green and a view down the valley, all of it free.
Read the pageMoving here
A town of acre lots
What the large lot code actually requires, where the commercial ground is, and the district that changes name in 2027.
Read the pageThe companion
Highland, in full
The pond, the course, the three days in July, the hollow and the code, gathered in one place.
Read the page
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Keep reading
More of Highland on The Local
Things to do
The top 9, ranked
Nine entries on 8.64 square miles, each with its own hours and its own gate.
Read the guideEighteen holes
Beacon Hill Park
Eighteen holes, two tees per basket, a nine hole putting green, and no charge at all.
Read the guideThree days in high summer
The Highland Fling
Three days, a caber toss, a state hammer title, and a road dip that named the lot.
Read the guideThe hollow
Mitchell Hollow
A pavilion, a paved loop, a second trailhead, and the hill that made cars fly in 1947.
Read the guideMoving here
A town of acre lots
Why the parcels here are large, written from the homestead map and the current code.
Read the guideThe companion
Highland, in full
The pond, the disc golf hill, the three days in July, the hollow and the code behind the lots.
Read the pageQuick answers
The pond, answered
At 4800 Knight Avenue on the east side of Highland, next to Lone Peak High School, with the entrance off the Alpine Highway at Park Road. The state's fishing listing also shows the pond at 10222 Hidden Oak Drive, which is the same water reached from the other side. On the ground you get the pond, a sand beach, sand volleyball, a playground, restrooms and picnic tables, walking and biking trails, a hundred seat pavilion, free parking, a pump track next door at the Highland Glen Bike Park, and a trailhead onto the paved Murdock Canal Trail.
Rainbow trout and channel catfish are the stocked species, and bluegill and largemouth bass are also in the water. It is on the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources community fisheries list, so the community water rules apply rather than the general statewide ones: the daily limit is two fish, a Utah fishing license is required at the usual ages, and fishing is from the bank. The state does not post a stocking schedule ahead for this pond, so any date you see on a forum is a rumor rather than a plan.
Two fish a day, which is the community fishery limit rather than the general Utah limit, and it catches out anyone used to reservoir rules. A Utah fishing license applies at the usual ages, fishing is from the bank because there is no pier and no boats here, and you can fish only while the park is open, which is dawn to dusk. Utah resets its fishing rules every year, so read the current state guidebook for the season you are fishing.
There is a sand beach and no lifeguard, so swimming is at your own risk, and the real answer depends on the week. The water is monitored by the Utah Department of Environmental Quality under the name Highland Glen Reservoir, with its own results page, and the Utah County Health Department issues the advisories. It has carried E. coli advisories in past seasons and harmful algal bloom warning advisories in late summer, including October 2025 and again in late August 2026. Check the state page and the county health department before you get in, and keep pets out of water you would not enter yourself.
Yes. Non-motorized craft are allowed and nothing with a motor is, so paddleboards, kayaks and similar go straight in off the sand beach. There is no rental on site, so whatever floats has to arrive on your car, and the carry from the parking to the water is short. The same water quality caution applies as for swimming, because a paddler goes in eventually, so read the state monitoring page for the current week before you launch.
No entrance fee, and the parking, the beach, the volleyball court, the playground and the trailhead all cost nothing. What carries a charge is the pavilion, which seats a hundred and is booked through Highland City's reservation system at twenty dollars for a half day and forty for a full day for residents, and seventy and a hundred for non-residents. A reservation covers the pavilion only; the rest of the park stays open to everybody while it is booked.
The park is open dawn to dusk daily, and the gates close after that. Those are also the hours you can fish, because the water is open only while the park is. The pavilion is bookable in half day blocks from eight until two and from three until nine, or as a full day from eight until nine. Highland City's noise ordinance sets quiet hours from ten at night until seven in the morning for residential areas, which is the real limit on anything held here in the evening.
Yes. The paved seventeen mile trail runs along the bench and this park's parking lot is one of Highland's access points onto it, which is why the lot fills with bicycles on weekends. The other Highland trailhead is at Mitchell Hollow Park about two and a half miles west. The trail itself, its full length across seven cities, the enclosed pipe beneath the asphalt and its underpasses, is covered on the Murdock Canal Trail page.
It is the deepest single address in Highland for one, with several things to do around one pond: bank fishing, a sand beach, a sand volleyball court, a pump track next door, and the paved trail running straight out of the parking lot, plus a playground, restrooms and shade under a bookable pavilion. What it does not have is a lifeguard, a rental counter or food on site, so check the water against the state monitoring page and bring everything else in the car with you.
One pond, and four different reasons to be standing beside it
An afternoon here asks whether the water is clean this week. An address here asks something else: how close to the eastern end of Highland you want to be, what a lot on this side backs onto now that the paved corridor runs through it, which of the three residential zones the parcel sits in, and what the outdoor irrigation service costs to run on it. Tell me what you are weighing and I will put you with a Utah County partner agent who works this bench, and stay on the file for the financing side.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
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