The river Midvale
The western boundary, and the ground that had to be rebuilt beside it
The Jordan River through Midvale, honestly
The river draws the whole western boundary of this city and the paved parkway trail follows it. What makes Midvale's stretch unlike any other municipal reach in the valley is that stabilizing these banks was part of a federal cleanup remedy, and the districts built above them were laid out facing the water rather than backing onto it. Here are the three ways onto it, the wetland most people miss, and what is underneath the ground beside the pavement.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
The Jordan River forms Midvale's entire western boundary, and the paved Jordan River Parkway trail runs beside it for about 2.6 miles. You get onto that trail at three points on the west side of the city: Jordan Bluffs Park, the Riverwalk Park Open Space wetland, and the 7800 South trailhead. All of it is free, and none of the three has restrooms. What sets this reach apart from every other in the valley is what happened underneath it: the river bank here was rebuilt as part of two federal Superfund cleanups, and the district above it was laid out facing the water rather than backing onto it. There is no historic mill or visitor center on this stretch, so it is not a day trip. Its value is connection, from wetland to grocery store to a TRAX platform on foot.
Start here
The one reach where the remedy included the river bank
The Jordan River draws Midvale's entire western boundary. That is the whole of this city's relationship with it: not a river through the middle of town, but a line on the far side, with the paved regional trail following it and a redeveloped third of the city sitting between the trail and the freeway.
What makes this reach different from every other municipal stretch in the valley is what is underneath the ground beside it. The cleanup remedy for the Midvale Slag site included restoring and stabilizing the Jordan River banks. That is not landscaping described after the fact; it was part of a federal cleanup. The bank you walk along here was rebuilt as engineering.
The second difference follows from the first. Because the ground had to be rebuilt anyway, the districts that went on it were laid out facing the water rather than backing onto it, which is the opposite of what an industrial river edge normally produces. The wetland park, the trail connections and the buildings above them are all deliberate. Very few reaches of this river were designed at all.
Midvale's river edge by the numbers
20 acres
of wetland and open water at the Riverwalk open space
2.6 mi
of paved parkway trail through the city
2
federal cleanup files behind the ground the trail passes
Free
no gate or fee anywhere on this edge
The access
Three ways onto it, and they are not the same trip
Choosing badly here does not ruin a morning, but it does decide whether you get restrooms, whether you get wetland, and how long the light lasts. All three are within a short distance of each other on the western edge of the city.
| Jordan Bluffs Park | Riverwalk Park Open Space | The 7800 South trailhead | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where | 7970 Bingham Junction Boulevard | 1013 Village Bend Lane | 1071 West 7800 South |
| What it is | A city park with the trail connection on it | About 20 acres of wetland with an open water pond and walking paths | A trailhead onto the parkway |
| What is there | Basketball, pickleball and volleyball courts, a playground and small pavilions | Paths linking the parkway to the district and the TRAX platform | Trail access and parking |
| Restrooms | None | None | None |
| Closing | Closes at dark | Open space, no set closing time | Trail hours |
| Use it for | Courts first and the trail second | The wetland, the birds and the walk to the platform | Getting straight onto pavement and riding |
None of the three access points has restrooms, and where restrooms exist in Midvale's parks they are seasonal, so plan a cold weather visit as short and within daylight.
The Riverwalk open space is the one worth a detour, and the one nobody arrives for. Twenty acres of wetland with a pond in it, sitting between the paved trail and a redeveloped district, with paths that carry you from the water to a TRAX platform on foot. That sequence, from a wetland to a train, in about ten minutes and at no cost, does not exist on most of this river.
Jordan Bluffs Park is the practical choice for anybody combining the trail with something else, because three court sports sit on one small site. Two things there are worth taking seriously: no restrooms, and a closing time of dark rather than the later hour the city's other parks keep. In December that is an afternoon that ends around five.
The 7800 South trailhead is the plain one, and it does the plain job. If the point is to be on the pavement and moving, it is the shortest way from a car to the trail on this side of the city. The paved Midvale section runs about 2.6 miles and barely climbs, roughly sixteen feet end to end, and it is split by who maintains it: Midvale City north of 7800 South, Salt Lake County to the south.
Underneath
The bank you walk on is named in a federal remedy
Two Superfund sites sit against this stretch of river and both are on the public record. The northern one, Midvale Slag, covers 446 acres of former smelting and ore-processing ground, and its cleanup remedy included removing smelter waste and slag, monitoring groundwater, and restoring and stabilizing the Jordan River banks. Construction was declared complete in 2011, and the site left the National Priorities List in 2015.
The southern one is Sharon Steel, also recorded as Midvale Tailings, about 470 acres, where smelting and ore milling for lead, copper and zinc ran from 1906 to 1971. Its first operable unit was roughly 260 undeveloped acres carrying a tailings pile of about 10 million cubic yards, which was capped, with construction complete in 1999. The Environmental Protection Agency deleted it from the list in 2004.
Neither of those is a reason to be nervous on a trail, and neither is a reason to be casual about a parcel. They are two separate files with two separate sets of dates, they are public, and the honest way to hold them is the way a title officer does: read the documents that attach to the specific ground in question. The district page sets the whole record out side by side, including which development sits on which site.
What all of that produced, for a walker, is a river edge that was designed rather than left over. The wetland with the pond in it, the paths that link the trail to a TRAX platform, the buildings above the bank that face toward the water: those are the consequences of a corridor that had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Most urban rivers get whatever was left after the industry moved out. This one got a plan.
Most city river banks are whatever survived the last century. This one is listed in the remedy that cleaned it.
The honest version
A short reach with no destination on it
Nothing on Midvale's stretch is a reason to drive across the valley. There is no historic mill, no garden, no visitor center, no cafe on the bank and no landmark. If you are choosing one segment of this river for a day out, it is not this one, and saying otherwise would waste somebody's Saturday.
What it is instead is a short, flat, useful edge with an unusual amount of design behind it, and its best feature is connection rather than scenery. From the bank you can walk to a wetland, the Bingham Junction district, a grocery store and a TRAX platform without crossing anything difficult. On a river where large stretches run behind fences and service roads, that is worth more than another mile of pavement.
For anybody weighing an address, the practical point is short. The western third of this city is the part with the trail at the end of the street, and it is also the newest part, the part with the rail platform in it, and the part with the two files behind it. Those things arrive together here; they are not separable. Whether that trade suits a household is a question worth answering on foot rather than from a listing.
Beyond the boundary in either direction this stops being Midvale's subject. How far the line runs, where it joins up and where it does not, what paddling it involves, and what kind of river it actually is after a century of industry are county questions with a county answer: the parkway page holds all of it, and Midvale's stretch deliberately does not.
A snowmelt spring is the one thing that changes this edge from week to week. Everything on Midvale's western boundary sits low against a river fed by a very large basin, and a big melt year shows in it. The water rises, the margins move, and paved sections can go out of use for water or for repair with little notice, as the underpass at 7800 South has in past high water. Closures are posted by the agencies that maintain the trail, so from late February through May the ten seconds spent checking before you leave the house is worth more than any of the planning above it.
How to use it well
Four habits for a reach that is a connection rather than a destination
Pick the entrance for the trip rather than for the distance. The Riverwalk open space for the wetland and the walk to the platform, Jordan Bluffs Park if courts are part of the day, the 7800 South trailhead if the point is to be moving. That single choice does more for a morning here than any route planning, because all three put you on the same pavement and only one of them puts you beside a pond.
Watch the light in winter. Jordan Bluffs Park closes at dark rather than at a fixed evening hour, which in December is a very different instruction from the one it gives in June. Add no restrooms at any of the three access points and the sensible shape of a cold weather visit is short and daylight bound.
Treat it as one segment of something longer. The trail continues into the cities either side and the system as a whole, with its length and its connections, is the region page's subject rather than this one's. And if the district above the bank is the thing you are actually curious about, the Bingham Junction page takes the record, the buildings and the two separate files properly.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Keep reading
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Midvale City Park and the museum
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Bingham Junction, on cleaned ground
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Midvale, the whole picture
Main Street, the park, the reclaimed ground, the river edge and the address, in one place.
Read the pageQuick answers
The edge, answered
At three points along the western edge of the city. Jordan Bluffs Park at 7970 Bingham Junction Boulevard has the trail connection along with basketball, pickleball and volleyball courts, a playground and small pavilions. The Riverwalk Park Open Space is about 20 acres of wetland with an open water pond, and its paths tie the trail to the Bingham Junction district and its TRAX station. The 7800 South trailhead is at 1071 West 7800 South.
The Riverwalk Park Open Space, and it is the one almost nobody arrives for. It is about 20 acres of wetland with an open water pond, sitting between the paved parkway trail and the Bingham Junction district, with paths that carry you from the water to a TRAX platform on foot. That sequence, from wetland to train in about ten minutes and at no cost, does not exist on most stretches of this river.
Because rebuilding the bank was part of the cleanup. The Midvale Slag site covers 446 acres of former smelter ground along this western edge, and its remedy included restoring and stabilizing the Jordan River banks, removing smelter waste and slag, and monitoring groundwater. That site left the National Priorities List in 2015. The separate Sharon Steel site to the south, about 470 acres, was capped by 1999 and deleted from the list in 2004.
No. Jordan Bluffs Park has no restrooms, and it closes at dark rather than the later evening hour most of Midvale's parks keep. Neither of the other two river access points has restrooms either, and where restrooms exist in the city's parks they are seasonal. A cold weather visit to this edge is best kept short and within daylight.
About 2.6 miles of paved, nearly flat trail, with only about sixteen feet of elevation change end to end. Through Midvale the trail is split by who maintains it: the reach from 6600 South to 7800 South is Midvale City, and the reach south of 7800 South is Salt Lake County. The wider parkway runs about 45 miles from Utah Lake to the Great Salt Lake, and the region page reads it as one line rather than city by city.
Less than the stretches with a landmark on them. There is no historic mill, garden, visitor center or cafe on this reach, so it is not the segment people drive across the valley for. What it has instead is connection: from the bank you can reach a wetland, the Bingham Junction district, a grocery store and a TRAX platform without crossing anything difficult, which on a river where long stretches run behind fences is worth more than another mile of pavement.
Yes, and on this edge more than most, because the corridor here sits low against a river that drains a very large basin. A big snowmelt year raises the water and has closed paved sections here, including the underpass at 7800 South. Closures are posted by the agencies that maintain the trail, so from March through May the habit worth keeping is to check before you set off rather than to turn around at a barrier.
It is a roughly 20-acre site along the Jordan River in the Bingham Junction area, a wetland with an open water pond and walking paths that connect the parkway trail to the mixed use district and its TRAX station. It is open space rather than a scheduled park with a set closing time, and it is the quietest and least visited part of Midvale's western edge.
The western third of the city is the part with the trail at the end of the street. It is also the newest part, the part with a TRAX platform in it, and the part with two federal cleanup files behind it, and those things arrive together rather than separately. Whether that trade suits a household is worth answering on foot, at the hour you would really use the trail, rather than from a listing photo.
A designed river edge on the newest ground in the city
On this side of the city two things arrive in the same purchase: the newest ground and the longest paper trail. Weighing one against the other is a records job, not a matter of taste. Tell me which parcels you are looking at and a Salt Lake County partner agent who works this western edge will pull the file on each, while I take the homework and the financing side.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
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