Logan parks, trails and the river.

The Logan River Trail is the paved path that leaves from Canyon Entrance Park at First Dam and follows the river toward the mouth of the canyon. It is flat and easy where it starts, runs a few miles along the water, and is wide enough to share on foot, on a bike, or with a stroller. For a great many people in Logan it is the everyday walk, close to town and shaded by the river.

What makes it more than a riverside stroll is the trailhead it shares. From the same lot you can pick up the Bonneville Shoreline and Highline bench trails, which climb the foothills and ring the valley. So a soft walk by the water and a real climb onto the bench start from one parking spot, and you can turn a flat mile into a hill workout any time you feel like it. That combination is the whole point of the place.

Keep following the river network downstream and it threads through town toward Trapper Park and the neighborhoods; head the other way and the pavement gives out where the canyon and the Logan Canyon trails take over.

Merlin Olsen Central Park is Logan's downtown flagship, about eight acres of green a few blocks east of Main on Center Street. It was Civic Center Park for years before the city renamed it for Merlin Olsen, who was born in Logan in 1940, played at Logan High and then became a two time All American at Utah State before a long career with the Los Angeles Rams that ended in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Naming the central park for him is about as Logan as it gets.

A branch of the Logan River runs through the middle of the park, crossed by footbridges, and the grounds hold playgrounds, tennis and basketball courts, ball fields, a large pavilion and shaded picnic areas. In a cold winter the low ground freezes and part of it becomes an ice skating spot, which is a rare thing for a park right in the middle of a downtown. It is the easy answer for an hour outdoors without leaving the city core.

It sits a short walk from the shops, cafes and theatre of the historic core, so it pairs naturally with the downtown walk on the sibling historic downtown Logan page.

Willow Park is the big shady park on the southwest side of town, and most people come for the playgrounds, the duck ponds, the picnic tables and the pavilions. It is a flat, tree lined green space near the Cache County Fairgrounds, an easy place to spend a low key afternoon, and it is free. On a warm day the ponds and lawns do most of the work of entertaining small children on their own.

The one paid thing inside it is Zootah, the small city zoo that started here in 1970 as the Willow Park bird aviary and grew into a seven acre collection of more than forty species. The zoo runs on its own season and its own admission, and it has its own sibling page; the park around it stays open and free whether or not you go in.

The full story of the zoo, its history and its animals, its hours and its cost, is on the sibling Zootah and Willow Park page. This entry is about the park itself as green space.

Beyond the marquee parks, Logan keeps a scatter of small neighborhood parks so that most streets have a playground and a patch of grass within a few minutes. They are the ordinary, useful ones: a swing set, a field, a pavilion, a bit of shade. Naming a few gives the shape of it. Adams Park sits at 550 North 500 East, Bridger Park at 1181 North 400 West on the north side, Hillcrest Park up the bench at 900 North 1500 East, and Logan Meadows Park at 350 South 600 West on the west side.

None of them is a destination on its own, and that is the point; they are where a family actually spends a Tuesday afternoon rather than a Saturday outing. Logan Parks and Recreation keeps the full list, park by park, with what each one holds, since courts and fields are spelled out on the individual records rather than in one table.

Where these parks sit maps closely onto Logan's council neighborhoods, which are laid out on the sibling Logan neighborhoods page for anyone weighing where in town to land.

The Logan Aquatic Center at 451 South 500 West is the city's outdoor pool, and it is a real one. Built in 2001, it holds about 800,000 gallons of water across three pools: a fifty meter Olympic size lap pool with one and three meter diving boards, a shallow leisure pool for small children, and a slide pool at the base of two water slides. That fifty meter tank is unusual for a town this size and it is why competitive swimmers train here as well as families cooling off.

Open swim runs 7 dollars for an individual, 3.25 for an active adult 60 and over or for military with ID, 2 dollars for a spectator, and it is free for ages three and under. Monday night is a discounted family night. Because it is outdoors, it is a summer only pool, open roughly from late May through the end of the season around Labor Day, seven days a week.

Hours and the exact opening date shift a little each year with the school calendar, so confirm them at loganutah.gov before you drive over. When the pool is closed for the season, the indoor Community Recreation Center below is the year round alternative.

The Logan Community Recreation Center at 195 South 100 West is the city's indoor facility, a couple of blocks off Main Street, and it is the year round counterweight to the summer only pool. Inside are a gym, an indoor track, a weight and cardio room, courts and group fitness classes, on a drop in admission that runs a few dollars. It is a plain, working municipal rec center, which is exactly what it is meant to be.

Its real value shows up in the cold and wet months and on the bad air days. When the valley sits under a winter inversion and the outdoor stops are unpleasant, an indoor track and a court are the honest answer, and this is the public building that has them. Downstairs and upstairs gyms mean there is usually room to play.

Hours and current drop in prices are set by Logan Parks and Recreation, so check loganutah.gov before you plan a visit around a class or a court. For how residents live with the winter air more generally, see the sibling living in Logan page.

The Logan River is the thread that ties this whole page together. It comes down out of the canyon, pools at First Dam, and runs through the middle of the city, which means you can fish and ride without ever leaving town. The pond at First Dam is stocked heavily with catchable rainbow trout each summer and has fishing piers and easy bank access, which makes it a genuinely good spot to fish with children. The river itself holds trout as it drops through the canyon and into town for anyone who wants moving water.

For biking, the paved Logan River Trail and the connecting bench trails cover the range from a flat family ride by the water to a real climb onto the foothills, all from the same trailhead at Canyon Entrance Park. Add the paved greenways and neighborhood paths and you can string together an easy in town ride without much road.

A Utah fishing license applies for anyone old enough to need one, and the state stocking and regulations are the authority on what is open. This is the everyday, close to home version of Cache Valley's water and trails; the big canyon and lake trips are on the region pages.

The last entry is really a boundary. On the east edge of town the paved trails give way to the bench, where the Bonneville Shoreline and Highline trails climb the foothills above the valley floor. From First Dam and Canyon Entrance Park you can walk out of a city park and onto a foothill trail in a few minutes, which is the practical link between the in town water and the mountains behind it. It is also, on a bad air day, the reliable way to climb above a winter inversion into clean air and sun.

Keep going and the bench hands off to the canyon proper, and that is where this page stops. Tony Grove, the Wind Caves, the Jardine Juniper and the Crimson Trail all sit up Logan Canyon, and The Local writes each of those once, on the region Logan Canyon page, because the whole valley reaches the same canyon.

The winter side of the mountains, the ski hills at Beaver Mountain and Cherry Peak, and the drive over the summit to Bear Lake, are their own region pages too. This roster names the handoff and points up; it does not drive the canyon.