The Jordan Narrows, where the river gets into this valley.

Through the Jordan Narrows, the gap in the Traverse Mountains below the Point of the Mountain, at the southern boundary of Bluffdale. The Jordan River is Utah Lake's only outlet and leaves the lake between Lehi and Saratoga Springs, runs north, and passes through that single gap to reach the Salt Lake Valley. There is no other route, which makes this reach the one piece of the river no other city on it can claim.

The first of two dams on the Jordan River, sitting in the Jordan Narrows reach. It diverts water into the East Jordan Canal and the Utah and Salt Lake Canal, which is the point at which the river stops being a single channel and becomes a distribution system. The structure takes its name from William Augustia Turner, who moved to the Narrows in 1874 as watchman on Salt Lake County's canal system.

Several bodies at once. The Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy operates two pumping systems there, one turbine driven and one electric, usable separately or together, and supplies 115 cubic feet per second to the Utah Lake Distributing Company while receiving 65 cubic feet per second from Deer Creek in exchange. That company's south branch canal serves the Saratoga Springs side and its north branch carries water to Bluffdale, Riverton, South Jordan and West Jordan.

There was. The Jordan River Electric Generating Company, formed in 1897 by Salt Lake City businessmen led by Allan Lamson, opened a single storey brick plant that began operating on 15 January 1899, generating about a thousand kilowatts through two steel penstocks and two turbines, and sold power to the mines at Mercur and Bingham. It passed to Telluride Power and then Utah Power and Light, and closed between 1921 and 1924. The forebay and foundations remain visible beside the trail.

Beside the Jordan River Parkway trail near Iron Horse Boulevard, at the southern end of the city. What survives is not a building: it is the concrete forebay that held the water before it dropped through the penstocks, the foundations of the plant itself, and the foundation of a substation on the rise above it. There is no interpretive signage, so look for straight concrete lines that do not belong to a river channel.

The city publishes trail hours of 5am to 11pm and permits walking, running, cycling and rollerblading. Dogs must be on a lead. Gas powered vehicles, motorcycles and off highway vehicles are banned outright. Users are asked to stay to the right, to call a pass on the left, and to carry rubbish out. Bluffdale states plainly that this is a watershed area, which on a river feeding canals into four cities is a working instruction rather than a formality.

Yes. The city publishes access on the north west side of the Porter Rockwell Boulevard bridge, with two approaches that both eventually join the main Jordan River trail. The bridge itself carries a ten foot path on its north side, which is the first east to west walking and cycling connection anywhere south of 12300 South, so it doubles as a way of reaching the river corridor from the western half of the city.

No. Camp Williams is a Utah National Guard training site occupying the ground on the southern side of Bluffdale, and it is closed to casual public recreation. That is where the publicly walkable ground stops rather than a comment on the terrain. Plan any walk in this reach as an out and back on the trail on the Bluffdale side rather than as a through route towards Utah County.

Because the water infrastructure here is live rather than historic. Seven canals crossed this town, a dam at the southern boundary still splits the flow, and canals, ditches, easements and water rights are ordinary features of parcels in this part of the valley. They appear in title work and they can constrain what is built where. The cheerful side is that the flood plain was never buildable, which gave the city a continuous green corridor along its eastern and southern edge.