The river Murray
Murray's own reach, park by park, marker by marker
The Jordan River through Murray, end to end.
The city publishes its own stretch precisely: 1200 West Winchester Street to 593 West 4800 South, about five miles of paved trail with a marker every tenth of a mile, five trailhead car parks, canoe launches and an equestrian trail crossing it. At the north end a canyon creek finishes its run into the river, and on the bank a school district teaches in a wetland. Here is Murray's reach, park by park.
Southern Utah is my home turf. Murray is not, so these pages are researched rather than lived: checked against city, county and venue sources, and dated so you can see how fresh they are. For the on-the-ground work here I lean on a Salt Lake County partner agent.
Start here
Five miles, with a marker every tenth of one.
Murray publishes the boundaries of its own stretch of the Jordan River Parkway with a precision that most cities on this river do not bother with: from 1200 West Winchester Street, which is 6400 South, to 593 West 4800 South. That is about five miles of paved trail, and the city states that it carries mile markers every tenth of a mile along the whole of it.
Five miles is a number a household can actually use. The trail this reach belongs to runs roughly 45 miles through the valley and that figure is useful to nobody planning a Tuesday evening. What matters at the doorstep is that Murray's own section has five separate trailhead car parks on it, so any out and back can be exactly the length you want without a shuttle, a lift or a plan.
The city also states that the parkway here is fully accessible with barrier free areas, that there are canoe launches on this reach, and that an equestrian trail runs perpendicular to the paved one. That last item is a genuine surprise in the middle of a metropolitan valley and it is not decorative: horses use it, and the crossings are real crossings.
Murray's reach by the numbers
5 miles
of paved trail inside the city
0.1 mile
between markers, the whole way
5
trailhead car parks on this reach
4800 S
the north end, at Arrowhead Park
The access points
Five parks and what each one is actually good for.
The reach is entered through Germania, Willow Pond, Arrowhead, Walden and Winchester parks. They are not interchangeable, and choosing the wrong one is the difference between a good hour and a car park with a picnic table in it.
| The park | Where | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Germania Park | 5234 South Murray Parkway Avenue | The most complete access: a 100 person pavilion, playground, restrooms, basketball and volleyball courts, a canoe launch, open grass, and both the asphalt and equestrian trails |
| Willow Pond Park | North of the golf course, on Murray Parkway | Listed at 27.9 acres around a four acre pond with a fish cleaning station, two basketball courts, a pavilion, two soccer pitches, three playgrounds, volleyball, a baseball field with concession, restrooms and a gazebo |
| Arrowhead Park | 593 West 4800 South | The north end of the city's reach: small picnic tables, trail access, parking and restrooms, and no rentable pavilion |
| Walden Park | On the parkway between the others | A quieter neighbourhood access point onto the trail rather than a destination park |
| Winchester Park | Near 1200 West Winchester Street, 6400 South | The south end of the city's reach, and the point at which the trail leaves Murray heading upstream |
Parks, addresses and amenity lists as published by the City of Murray, checked 7 August 2026. Amenities at municipal parks change as cities invest, so confirm anything you are travelling for with Murray Parks and Recreation on 801-264-2614, and note that pavilion reservations run through the city rather than the county.
Germania is the one to use if you want a park as well as a trail, and its name is the reason it belongs on this page rather than any other city's. Germania was one of the smelting works that stood on this valley floor from about 1870, and the name survives here on a park and a street on the western edge of the city. Standing on the river at a park named after a nineteenth century smelter is about as concise a summary of Murray as the geography offers.
Willow Pond is the one that behaves least like a river park. The four acre pond, the fish cleaning station and the loop around the water make it a destination in its own right, and a good share of the people there on any given evening never touch the parkway at all. If the point of the trip is a walk with water and a playground rather than distance on the trail, that is the one.
Arrowhead at 4800 South is the least equipped and the most useful, because it is the north end. Small tables, parking, restrooms and trail access is exactly what a turnaround point needs to be, and it sits directly opposite one of the more interesting pieces of ground on this whole river.
The north end
Where the creek from the canyon finally reaches the river.
Little Cottonwood Creek leaves its canyon on the east side of the valley, crosses the bench, runs past the ground where the Wheelers built their farmstead in 1886, threads the whole length of Murray Park, and then keeps going west until it meets the Jordan River at about 4800 South. That is the north end of Murray's parkway reach, and it means one line of water connects the two largest green spaces in this city.
The confluence itself is protected as Little Confluence Open Space, about nine acres with a nature trail, a boat ramp and a pavilion, and hundreds of cottonwoods and willows planted there through the county's tree programme. There is an honest boundary note attached: the open space posts its address as 675 West 4800 South, which puts it on the Taylorsville side of the line. Murray's Arrowhead Park sits opposite at 593 West 4800 South. You can walk between the two in a couple of minutes and you will cross a city boundary doing it.
That is worth stating plainly rather than quietly claiming the ground, because it is the kind of thing a city page usually fudges. The confluence is a shared asset at a municipal seam, and the trail runs straight through it in both directions. What happens either side belongs to the neighbouring cities and to the region topic on the parkway as a whole.
Follow the same water the other way and you are back at Murray Park, which is where most people in this city meet Little Cottonwood Creek without ever thinking about where it goes afterwards. Doing the whole line in one day, canyon mouth to river, is a genuinely good way to understand how this city is laid out.
One creek runs from a canyon, through the city's park, and into the river at the far corner of town.
The unusual one
A school district with a wetland of its own.
This is the thing on Murray's stretch of the river that exists nowhere else on the line, and almost nothing written about the parkway mentions it.
The Kennecott Nature Center sits at 5044 South Lucky Clover Lane, in wetland beside the Jordan River, and it is operated by the Murray City School District as an outdoor classroom. The building was designed to disappear into its setting, with a garden of native Utah plants on the roof, and a nature trail with native trees runs below it at the water's edge.
The scale is not token. In the 2025-26 school year the centre ran 317 individual classes for 6,553 students, taking in classes from the Murray district and selected fourth year groups from the neighbouring Granite district. That is a working teaching facility with a timetable rather than a display, and it is the reason a stretch of urban river wetland here has been kept as wetland rather than tidied.
For a visitor the practical position is straightforward: this is a school facility, not a public attraction, so the building and its programme are not something to turn up to. What it does mean is that the river corridor through this part of Murray is actively managed as habitat by an institution with a daily reason to care about it, and you can see the difference in the vegetation along that reach.
The river ground
Eighteen holes on the flood plain, since 1986.
Murray Parkway Golf Course occupies a long piece of the river ground at 6345 South Murray Parkway Avenue, towards the southern end of the city's reach. It opened in 1986, it was designed by Robert Muir Graves, it plays as a par 72 at about 6,900 yards, and it is owned by the city and open to the public.
The design brief shows in the walking. Graves built it on rolling terrain that is gentle enough to walk rather than forcing a cart, and it is generally described as a course laid out with beginners and intermediate players in mind rather than as a test for low handicaps. For a municipal course on a river flood plain in the middle of a metropolitan valley, that is exactly the right ambition.
It matters to the trail as well as to golfers. A golf course is a very effective way of keeping a long strip of flood plain open, green and undeveloped, and this one sits between the parkway and the neighbourhoods to the east for a substantial stretch. The trail user gets a corridor of trees and mown ground rather than back fences, which is a large part of why this reach reads as pleasant rather than merely useful.
A flood plain is why this corridor is green, and it is also why it floods. The reason there is a five mile ribbon of open ground through the west side of a fully built out city is that this is the Jordan River's flood plain, and cities do not put houses on flood plains. That is the bargain: the corridor exists because the water occasionally takes it back. High spring runoff can close sections of trail and change what the river looks like entirely, and the city and the county post closures rather than leaving you to find them.
How to use it well
Four habits for a trail people use rather than visit.
Pick the trailhead for the trip rather than the nearest one. Germania if you want the full park kit and a canoe launch, Willow Pond if the pond is the point, Arrowhead if you are walking the north end and the confluence, Winchester if you want to head south out of the city, Walden if you simply want to get on the trail from a quiet street. Five car parks in five miles is a luxury and most people use whichever one they used last time.
Use the markers. Every tenth of a mile the whole way is a rare thing on an urban trail, and it turns this reach into a measured course rather than a vague distance. If you are building back from an injury, training to a number, or trying to get a child to do a specific distance without arguing about it, that detail is worth more here than the scenery.
And treat it as the ordinary weekday amenity it is. This is not a destination trail and it does not pretend to be; it is flat, paved, close to home and open every day of the year, which is exactly what makes it the thing residents on this side of the city actually use. The through route, the water trail and the eight cities that share this river are covered on the county page, which is where the system level material belongs.
Keep reading
More of Murray on The Local.
Things to do
The top 8, ranked
A 63 acre park on a creek, a theatre back after eight dark years, and a farm from 1886.
Read the guideThe park
Murray Park, end to end
Sixty three acres, a creek down the middle, an arboretum and the old county fairground.
Read the guideThe smelter ground
Where the smokestacks stood
Two stacks, 455 and 295 feet, gone in one morning, and what marks the ground now.
Read the guideThe centre
Murray City Centre
Five form districts adopted in 2025, a 1938 theatre reopened, and a mansion turned museum.
Read the guideMoving here
A centre of the valley address
What three rail stops, two freeways and a round the clock hospital do to a week.
Read the guideThe companion
Murray, the whole picture
The park, the smelter ground, the city centre, the river and the address, in one place.
Read the pageQuick answers
The reach, answered.
The City of Murray publishes its own stretch as running from 1200 West Winchester Street, which is 6400 South, to 593 West 4800 South: about five miles of paved trail. The city also states that mile markers run every tenth of a mile along it, that there are five trailhead car parks, that canoe launches are available, and that the parkway here is fully accessible with barrier free areas.
At five separate access parks: Germania, Willow Pond, Arrowhead, Walden and Winchester. Germania Park at 5234 South Murray Parkway Avenue is the most complete, with a 100 person pavilion, playground, restrooms, courts, open grass and a canoe launch. Arrowhead Park at 593 West 4800 South marks the north end with parking, restrooms and small picnic tables. Winchester sits at the southern end of the city's reach.
Yes. The city describes an equestrian trail running perpendicular to the paved path, and Germania Park lists both asphalt and equestrian trails among its amenities. It is a genuine working trail rather than a historical leftover, so cyclists and walkers should expect to meet horses at the crossings. The courtesy is the usual one: slow down, speak so the animal hears a human voice, and pass wide.
A 27.9 acre park on the parkway built around a four acre pond, with a fish cleaning station, two basketball courts, a pavilion, two soccer pitches, three playgrounds, volleyball courts, a baseball field with a concession, restrooms, a gazebo and open grass. It works as a destination in its own right rather than only as a trail access point, and a good share of the people there on any evening never set foot on the parkway itself.
At about 4800 South, at the north end of Murray's parkway reach. The confluence is protected as Little Confluence Open Space, roughly nine acres with a nature trail, a boat ramp and a pavilion, planted with hundreds of cottonwoods and willows through the county's tree programme. Its posted address of 675 West 4800 South puts it on the Taylorsville side of the boundary; Murray's Arrowhead Park sits opposite at 593 West 4800 South.
An outdoor classroom at 5044 South Lucky Clover Lane, operated by the Murray City School District in wetland beside the Jordan River, with a garden of native Utah plants on its roof and a nature trail at the water's edge. In the 2025-26 school year it ran 317 classes for 6,553 students, drawn from the Murray district and selected fourth year groups from Granite. It is a working school facility rather than a public attraction.
Murray Parkway Golf Course, at 6345 South Murray Parkway Avenue on the river ground towards the southern end of the city's reach. It opened in 1986, was designed by Robert Muir Graves, plays as a par 72 at about 6,900 yards over eighteen holes, and is owned by the city and open to the public. It was laid out on rolling ground gentle enough to walk, with beginner and intermediate players in mind.
Because it is a flood plain, and cities do not build houses on flood plains. That is the whole bargain behind a five mile ribbon of green through a fully built out city: the corridor exists because the water occasionally takes it back. High spring runoff can close sections of the trail and change the river entirely for a few weeks, and both the city and the county post closures rather than leaving trail users to discover them.
It is one of the better measured stretches on the whole river, because of the mile markers every tenth of a mile along the full five miles. Combined with five trailhead car parks and flat paved surface, that makes it unusually good for training to a specific distance, for building back after an injury, and for getting a child to complete a set distance. For the wider trail, the connections and the long rides, the county parkway page covers the system.
Five miles of flat green ground on the west side of a built out city.
A trail at the end of the street is worth real money in a valley where most addresses are ten minutes from the nearest open ground, and how a specific property sits relative to this corridor is not something a portal listing will tell you. Send me the streets you are circling and I will put you with a Salt Lake County partner agent who knows which blocks actually back onto it.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.