The Jordan River through Riverton, honestly

At two marked trailheads and no others. Dr. O. Roi Hardy Park at 12400 River Vista Drive is a 5.22 acre riverside park established in 2005 with a gated playground, restrooms, a drinking fountain, a parking lot, a walking path, a nature boardwalk and two reservable pavilions. The Riverbend Trailhead at 12765 South 1125 West is a trail access point closer to Riverton City Park and the rodeo arena.

Dr. O. Roi Hardy Park, and the deciding detail is the gated playground, in a park sitting on the bank of a river. It also has restrooms, a drinking fountain, a parking lot and two reservable pavilions of six to seven picnic tables each. The nature boardwalk there takes you off the paved trail and out over the low ground at the water's edge, which is a better ten minutes than any stretch of the paved path.

No, it is run by Salt Lake County, despite sitting at 1040 West 12800 South well inside the Riverton city boundary. It opened in 1994 to a Gene Bates design and plays as an eighteen hole public course with elevated tees over the river bottoms. Tee times, green fees, conditions and every operational question go to the county rather than to city hall, which is the single most commonly misstated fact about this edge of the city.

Because it is the Jordan River's flood plain, and cities do not put houses on flood plains. That is the bargain behind every soft green edge in a built up valley: the corridor stays open because the water occasionally takes it back. A golf course is one of the very few uses that can occupy that ground, which is why a long stretch of this edge is mown and treed rather than backed by fences.

Less than almost anywhere else on the line. There is no mill village, garden, festival ground or visitor center on this reach, so it is not the segment anybody drives across the valley for, and on a weekday morning a good deal of it is empty. That is a feature if you live nearby and a reason to go elsewhere if you want a destination ride. The county parkway page covers which segments have something attached to them.

A shared use path being built in phases along the canal of the same name, about two miles inland from the river. UDOT named the northern section among the first projects funded through the Utah Trail Network, covering about three quarters of a mile, from 13200 South to 13800 South, with a bridge planned over 13400 South. With county money added, reported funding runs above 9 million.

Several, and most of them are inland rather than on the river. The Midas Creek Trail has been built in separate sections with trailheads on both sides of Bangerter Highway and connection work still going on. The Rose Creek Trail runs from Monarch Meadows Park southwest into Herriman. The Western Springs Trail links parks on the far west side. Add the Mountain View Trail, the Margaret Park Trail and paths ringing three separate parks, and the network is genuinely useful.

It can, because this is flood plain. In a heavy runoff spring the river runs high, fast and cold, the low ground either side looks entirely different, and sections of paved trail anywhere along the county line can close for water or repair. Both the city and the county post closures rather than leaving trail users to discover them, and the county is separately the source for golf course conditions. Check in March, April and May rather than assuming.

It is the only part of the city where you can walk out of a neighborhood onto a regional trail without crossing an arterial, and the number of streets that qualify is genuinely small. Two marked trailheads across an entire city boundary is the measure of how small. Whether that scarcity is worth paying for depends on how much you would actually use it, which is worth testing on foot at the hour you would really go.