The Jordan River Parkway, the valley's long green line.

About 45 miles of paved, multi use trail run along the river through the Salt Lake Valley, from the Utah County line toward the Great Salt Lake marshes, and the wider corridor including connections runs longer. Nobody needs the full number in one day: trailheads arrive every mile or two along the whole line, so the parkway is really a menu of out and back segments from whichever city you start in.

Eight of Salt Lake County's eighteen cities touch the river directly: Bluffdale, Riverton, South Jordan, West Jordan, Midvale, Taylorsville, Murray and West Valley City, with the line continuing north through South Salt Lake and Salt Lake City. That is why the parkway is treated here as a county subject: no other single amenity sits on as many of the valley's front doors at once.

Because the valley tilts that way. Utah Lake, at the south end, sits about 300 feet higher than the Great Salt Lake, so the river drains downhill northward through the length of the Salt Lake Valley. The pioneer settlers noticed the biblical parallel, a river flowing out of a freshwater lake into a dead salty one, and named it for the Jordan of the Holy Land. If the current is moving with you on the trail, you are headed toward the salt.

Yes, essentially end to end through the county, which is what makes it the valley's most usable long trail for road bikes, strollers, wheelchairs and skates. It is also flat: the elevation change across the whole county is modest, and the interruptions are road crossings and underpasses rather than climbs. Surface quality varies by city and segment age, with resurfacing and widening projects ongoing somewhere on the line most years.

Yes. The river is a designated water trail with mapped launch points, and a mid summer float through the cottonwood corridor is a genuinely good afternoon. The two non negotiables: know every diversion structure on your chosen reach and portage around them, because the hydraulics below drop structures are dangerous, and respect spring runoff, which turns the river fast and cold. The Jordan River Commission's water trail map is the planning source.

Pick a segment with a destination attached. Gardner Village in West Jordan puts an 1850s mill village right on the trail, at its liveliest in autumn. The stretch through Murray and Taylorsville runs leafy and park lined with easy parking. At the north end, the International Peace Gardens in Salt Lake City pair the riverbank with national garden plots dating to the 1940s. Any of the three turns a first visit into a loop with a reason.

Use the same judgment any long urban trail anywhere asks for. The busy segments are busy because they feel good to use: daylight hours, park adjacent miles and weekend mornings are the mainstream experience, and cities have invested steadily in lighting, sightlines and patrols. Conditions vary mile to mile like the trail itself, so if a stretch reads wrong on a given evening, ride the segment that reads right and come back another day.

Yes, leashed, under the ordinary park rules of whichever city's stretch you are on; leash lengths and cleanup rules are set city by city rather than by one authority. The parkway is one of the valley's default dog walking lines precisely because it is flat, shaded in long stretches and watered. It is also a working wildlife corridor with herons, waterfowl and the occasional deer, which is the other argument for the leash.

In three directions. South, the trail continues into Utah County toward Utah Lake. North, the Legacy Parkway Trail carries the line into Davis County. And east, Parley's Trail runs about 8 miles from the Jordan River up to the mouth of Parley's Canyon, linking the west side's river line to the east bench's Bonneville Shoreline Trail, which makes a full valley crossing on trail a real, if ambitious, day.