The reservoir Herriman
The only municipal sand swimming beach in Salt Lake County
Blackridge Reservoir, and every rule attached to it
Blackridge is a small swimming and paddling reservoir in Herriman with the only municipal sand beach in Salt Lake County, and it is free to enter. Everything tricky about a visit lives in the parking lot: summer weekends and holidays carry a card only charge, the surrounding streets are permit parking, and there is one lot with no overflow, so on hot days it fills and the city closes entry until spaces open. Come on a weekday morning and almost none of that touches you. Here is the whole picture, with the numbers to call and the state water page to check first.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
Blackridge Reservoir is the only municipal sand swimming beach in Salt Lake County, a small reservoir in Herriman that is free to walk into. What you plan around is the parking lot: on summer weekends and holidays it charges for parking and takes a card rather than cash, the surrounding streets are permit only, and there is a single lot with no overflow and no shuttle, so on hot afternoons it fills and the city closes entry until spaces open again. You can swim, wade and paddle a non motorized craft; you cannot bring a dog, dive, fish or launch anything with a motor. The trick to the whole place is a weekday morning, when the charge lifts and the lot is quiet.
What it is
An irrigation pond that ended up with a beach
Blackridge was not built for swimming. It is a secondary irrigation reservoir of about seven acres, put in to feed Herriman's secondary water system and to support water pressure in neighboring Riverton, and the city wrapped a park of roughly ten acres around it. What that produced, more or less by accident, is the only municipal sand swimming beach in Salt Lake County: open water with a beach, a playground, restrooms, a set of small pavilions and a large one, a paved loop and benches, sitting at the top of a residential street with the Oquirrh foothills right behind.
In a valley of well over a million people, an amenity that unusual does not stay a neighborhood secret, and it has not been one for years. What has grown up around it instead is one of the most closely managed access setups attached to any free public water in the state: a charge on the lot on weekends, a permit zone covering the surrounding streets through the warm months, a fine for parking in it without a tag, and a capacity notice the city posts on the days the lot fills. None of that is unreasonable, and all of it is easy to trip over. The point of this page is to put every one of those rules in one place, with the numbers to call, so a first visit is not the visit where you find out.
Parking, permits and capacity
The whole visit is decided in the parking lot
The reservoir itself is free to enter and always has been. What is metered is the space to leave a vehicle, and the city runs two separate systems to do it: a charge on the lot, and a permit scheme on the streets. They run on the same summer dates and they are not the same thing.
The lot charge applies on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays across the summer season, roughly May into early September, and it is paid by card, not cash, through the parking contractor that runs the lot on site. As of the 2026 season it was fifteen dollars for the day. Weekdays inside that same window carry no charge at all, which is why a Tuesday morning is the version of this place people describe fondly. Because the figure and the exact dates are the kind of thing a city revisits, confirm the current season and rate on the City of Herriman's Blackridge page before you rely on either; the parking office is reachable at 801-446-5323 and [email protected].
The streets around the reservoir are a different matter. City ordinance puts them under permit parking for the summer season, and permits go only to residents and property owners inside a marked boundary, a set number per household. Living a street beyond the line does not qualify anyone, so for a visitor there is no legal on street option here at all: it is the lot or nothing. The fine for parking on those streets without a tag is well into the low hundreds of dollars, set high on purpose after years when a cheaper ticket was treated as a parking fee. Herriman Police enforce it, by patrol and by neighbor complaint, and unpermitted vehicles are reported to dispatch on 801-840-4000.
The honest backdrop is worth a sentence, because the setup reads as unwelcoming if you do not know the story. Blackridge sits at the top of a residential street rather than at the end of a canyon road, with driveways along the approach, and when a regional draw lands in that setting the pressure falls on the curb outside somebody's front door. Years of complaints about cars across driveways, litter and damage led to the permit zone, and the city has said plainly that the weekend charge is there to thin the peak crowd and spread visitors across the week, not to raise money. That tells you what the fee actually buys: it is a crowd tool, so paying it does not guarantee a space, and arriving early matters far more than arriving with the right change.
On hot days the lot fills and the city closes entry until spaces open. There is one parking lot here, with no overflow, no second entrance and no shuttle, so a full lot is the end of the plan rather than a delay inside it. On the busiest summer afternoons the city posts that the reservoir has reached capacity and asks visitors to come back later. That is the single most useful thing to know before you drive, and it is the reason a weekday or an early start beats any amount of planning around the fee.
Swimming and the rules
A short list of what you can do and a longer one of what you cannot
Blackridge is untreated natural water in a shallow, warm basin with no lifeguard on duty, and the rule list reflects both facts. Read it before you pack the car rather than at the gate, because a couple of the prohibitions catch people out every season.
What you can do: swim and wade from the sand beach, unsupervised and at your own risk, and paddle a non motorized craft such as a kayak or paddleboard after clearing the state's mussel inspection step, the same one that applies to any Utah water. Picnicking at the pavilions and tables is fine. What you cannot do is a longer list: no dogs on the beach or in the water, no diving, no fishing, nothing with a motor, and no glass, alcohol, open flames, charcoal grills, smoking or vaping. In winter the paved loop stays walkable, but going out on the ice is prohibited, as are fireworks and overnight parking at any time of year.
The dog rule is the one worth repeating to anyone traveling with you, because a city reservoir at the top of a residential street reads like an ordinary city park and this one does not behave like one. Dogs are not permitted here at all. The county trail network at the western edge of Herriman, including the Butterfield Trailhead area and the Yellow Fork and Rose Canyon trails, does take dogs on a leash, and it is free, open and never at capacity, so that is the walk to take them on instead.
The water quality question deserves a straight answer rather than a reassurance. Utah's Department of Environmental Quality runs recreational monitoring at Blackridge through its Division of Water Quality, sampling for harmful algal blooms and for waterborne pathogens including E. coli, and it publishes each result along with any advisory in force. Testing through the 2026 season came back with E. coli below the recreational threshold and no visible sign of a bloom, and there was no advisory on the water body when this page was updated. That is a good record, and it is not a promise about next weekend: a shallow, warm basin is exactly the kind of water where conditions turn quickly, and the state says so in as many words. Look at the DEQ page the morning you go rather than trusting a review from last July. Blooms can be reported on 801-536-4123, and Utah Poison Control is on 800-222-1222.
One more honest note. Swimmer's itch turns up here from time to time. It is a normal feature of warm natural water rather than a sign of anything going wrong, it is not what the state monitors for, and rinsing and toweling off promptly after swimming is the ordinary precaution, the same one you would take at any lake in the state.
Timing it
Go on a weekday morning, and go early
Posted hours run from early morning to late evening, with the gate locked at night, and restrooms are open across a slightly wider window than the swimming season, spring through fall, which is worth knowing if you are walking the loop in the shoulder months. Nothing here is ticketed, timed or reserved, so the constraint is never the hours, it is the lot.
What is not published, because it cannot be, is the hour the lot fills on any given day. The pattern people describe is consistent: a summer weekday morning is quiet, a summer weekend after the middle of the morning is not, and the worst afternoons hit capacity and close. So this is a morning destination, and specifically a weekday morning destination. Arriving before nine on a Tuesday in July gets you free parking, an empty beach and the Oquirrhs with the sun still behind them. Arriving at two on a Saturday gets you a charge if there is a space and a drive home if there is not. Those two visits are so different that people who have made only one of them argue about what this place is like.
Bring a card, not cash, and check the state's water page before you leave rather than after you arrive; both are thirty second habits. And keep a second option in your pocket for the days the lot is gone, because there will be some. The county trail network at the western edge of the city is free, open, never at capacity and takes dogs on a leash, which is the exact combination Blackridge cannot offer, so an afternoon on this side of the valley is not hostage to one parking lot. The canyon page covers the road up into the Oquirrhs, including its current washout, and the ranked list lays out the rest of the city.
The wider point, for anyone weighing an address near here, is that this is what a fast growing city does when it builds something genuinely good and the rest of the valley notices: demand arrives faster than the infrastructure that serves it. How close a home sits to the reservoir cuts both ways, a short walk to open water on one hand and months of permit parking outside the door on the other. The page on moving here takes that pattern properly.
One parking lot, no overflow and no shuttle. On a July Saturday that single sentence is the whole of the planning problem.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Quick answers
The reservoir, answered
Parking is free on weekdays and carries a charge on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays through the summer season, roughly May into early September. It is paid by card, because the lot does not take cash, and the reservoir itself is free to enter in every case; what the city meters is the space to leave a vehicle. As of the 2026 season the weekend rate was fifteen dollars for the day, but confirm the current figure and dates on the City of Herriman's Blackridge page before you go.
Only with a city permit, and permits go only to residents and property owners inside a marked boundary around the reservoir. City ordinance puts the surrounding streets under permit parking for the summer season, each qualifying household gets a set number of tags, and the fine for parking there without one runs into the low hundreds of dollars. Herriman Police enforce it, by patrol and by neighbor complaint, and unpermitted vehicles are reported to dispatch on 801-840-4000. For a visitor that means the parking lot is the only legal option.
Posted hours run from early morning to late evening, with the gate locked at night, and restrooms are open a little wider than the swimming season, roughly spring through fall. Nothing here is timed, ticketed or reserved, so the practical constraint is not the hours but the parking lot: there is one lot, no overflow, no second entrance and no shuttle, and on busy summer days it fills and the city closes entry until spaces open.
Utah's Department of Environmental Quality runs recreational monitoring here through its Division of Water Quality, testing for harmful algal blooms and for waterborne pathogens including E. coli, and publishing each result. Testing through the 2026 season showed E. coli below the recreational threshold with no visible bloom, and there was no advisory in force when this page was updated. It is untreated natural water with no lifeguard, and conditions can change quickly, so check the state page before you go.
No. Dogs are not permitted on the beach or in the water, which surprises a lot of visitors because a city reservoir at the top of a residential street reads like an ordinary city park. The county trail network at the western edge of Herriman, including the Butterfield Trailhead area and the Yellow Fork and Rose Canyon trails, does take dogs on a leash, and it is free, open and never at capacity, so that is the walk to take them on instead.
Yes, non motorized craft are permitted, and Utah's mussel inspection requirement applies before launching, as it does on any water body in the state. Anything with a motor is prohibited outright, which follows from the size of the place: this is a roughly seven acre irrigation reservoir rather than a lake. Diving and fishing are also prohibited and both are posted. Bear in mind that everything you bring has to come from the same single parking lot as everybody else's beach gear.
The city's stated reason was to reduce peak crowds and spread visitors across the week rather than to raise money. The context is that Blackridge sits at the top of a residential street rather than at the end of a canyon road, and years of complaints from the surrounding neighborhood about cars parked across driveways, litter and damage led to the permit zone alongside the charge. The fine for parking on those streets without a permit was set high on purpose, after a cheaper ticket had been treated as a parking fee.
A weekday morning, and it is not close. A weekday inside the season carries no parking charge, the lot is very unlikely to be full, the beach is quiet, and the Oquirrhs directly behind keep the early sun off the water. A summer Saturday afternoon is the opposite of all four. The gate opens early, so anyone willing to be there before nine on a working day gets a genuinely different reservoir from the one that shows up in complaints and news coverage.
No. It is a constructed secondary irrigation reservoir of about seven acres, built to serve Herriman's secondary water system and to support water pressure in neighboring Riverton, with a city park of roughly ten acres around it. That origin explains most of what is unusual about it, from the fact that a suburb has a sand beach at all to the reason the water is untreated and the reason the site was never laid out to absorb a regional crowd.
A beach at the top of somebody's residential street
Blackridge is the amenity that comes up in every conversation about this part of the valley, and how close a property sits to it cuts both ways: a five minute walk to open water, and months a year of permit parking outside the front door. Tell me which streets are on your list and a Salt Lake County partner agent who works the southwest corner handles the ground work, while I stay on the homework and the financing side.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
Keep going
Continue your Herriman research
Eight more doors into Herriman, chosen for what this page covers.
Questions about Herriman?
Call Scott, send a message, or find out what your Herriman home is worth. No pressure, no obligation.
Referral Disclosure: For moves outside Southern Utah, I can connect you with trusted local agents. If you choose to work with one, their brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee from their commission. This costs you nothing extra, and you are never obligated to use my referral.