Walk or ride the river path from River Cove Trail Head
903 West 17th Street Free Best April to October Directions
Start with the river, because it is the one thing here that nowhere else in the county has in quite this form: a paved multiuse path along the Weber with a small lot at the end of a farm lane and almost nobody on it. The city publishes exactly one way in, River Cove Trail Head at 903 West 17th Street, and lists three things at it: a biking path, trailhead parking and a walking trail. That is the whole amenity list, and it is honest. There is no restroom, no drinking water and no shade structure.
The move is to park, turn east, and ride toward the confluence. The paved path through this city carries the Weber River Parkway name, and at the eastern end part of the pond loop at 21st Street crosses onto Marriott-Slaterville ground before it reaches Ogden's. Going west the path thins out fast and the ground turns to working farmland, so the eastward mile is the one that repays a first visit. On a bike it is flat, wide and quick; on foot it is a good forty minutes out and back.
The thing to know before you commit a Saturday is that this is a working river bottom rather than a park. Cottonwoods, gravel, birds, farm equipment on the lane behind you, and a paved surface that nobody grooms. It is peaceful in a way a groomed trail is not, and that is the appeal. Bring what you need with you, because the nearest published restroom belongs to City Hall Park, about three and a half miles away by road.
The one name nobody agrees on
The city has never named the trail its own lot serves. The state uses two names for the path inside this city, the Weber River Parkway and a spelling of the Centennial, the regional trails foundation uses Weber River Pathway and Weber River Parkway in different places, and Ogden's visitor material calls the whole thing the Weber River Parkway and gives it twelve miles. If you are searching for it before you drive, try Weber River Parkway first and River Cove Trail Head second, and do not conclude the trail is missing because one name returns nothing.
Why it is not on the state trail map
The state keeps a list of trailheads for the whole of Utah and River Cove is not on it. Between here and the canyon mouth it names three, and every one of them is in Riverdale or Ogden. So a visitor planning from a state trail map will not find this lot at all, while a visitor planning from the city's own facilities page will. That is worth knowing because it explains why a place with an address, a surface and a parking bay can feel undiscovered on a Saturday morning in June.
The details
Getting there
From the city offices at 1570 West 400 North, go south and then east onto 17th Street, which is 1700 South on the Ogden grid, and follow it to about 900 West. There is one address and one approach, and the parking is at the end of it. Nothing about the turn is signed from a distance, so watch the numbers rather than the signs.
Before you go
- No restroom, no tap and no trash can. Take water and carry your trash home.
- The city publishes no stall count. The county's 2010 trail inventory listed thirty spaces at this location under a different name, and that is a 2010 planning figure rather than a count of what is painted today.
- Go east from the lot for the better mile. West the surface thins and the ground becomes farmland.
- Nothing published names which bank of the river the lot sits on, so do not plan a crossing you have not seen.
- The city adopted the county pathways plan by ordinance in 2010 and publishes the ordinance itself; there are no posted city trail rules beyond that.
Take a morning at Marriott Park
1025 South 1200 West Free to use Year round Directions
Marriott Park is the city's sports park and the one that fills up. The city lists a basketball court, a softball diamond, a playground, a bowery with picnic tables, a kitchen and restrooms. For a city of about 2,290 that is a genuinely complete park, and on an ordinary Tuesday evening you will have most of it.
The move is to come after five, when the light is low over the fields and the heat has gone off the court. This is a valley floor park with no shade to speak of beyond the bowery, so a July noon is a mistake and a July seven o'clock is lovely. Bring a ball. The court and the diamond are the reason to choose this park over the one beside the city offices.
One caveat decides whether the day works. The restrooms and the kitchen here are marked rental only, so unless someone has booked them, plan on them being locked. That is not a complaint about the city, it is the arrangement, and knowing it in advance is the difference between a good morning and a short one. If a restroom matters, City Hall Park is the one whose restrooms carry no such note.
The one morning a year it is the center of town
The Fourth of July happens here and it happens all at one address. The city publishes a 5K at seven in the morning, breakfast at eight, a parade stepping off at half past ten on 1200 West, and lunch and games at eleven. Because 1200 West is a twenty five mile an hour city street rather than a highway, the whole route is walkable from the park, which makes this one of the easier small town Fourths in northern Utah to attend without a parking plan.
The details
Getting there
From the city offices, head south on 1200 West and stay on it. The park is on the east side at about 1025 South, on the same street the Fourth of July parade uses. It is a two lane city street the whole way with a twenty five mile an hour limit, so allow four or five minutes rather than two.
Before you go
- The restrooms and the kitchen are rental only, so plan on them being locked unless you have booked them.
- The city publishes no park hours, so treat this as a daylight park.
- There is almost no shade outside the bowery. On a summer day, come early or come late.
- Book the bowery through the city offices on 801-627-1919; there is an online application and no published fee, so call to ask what it costs.
- On the Fourth of July this park and the street outside it are the whole city, from seven in the morning until about midday.
Bring small children to City Hall Park
1570 West 400 North Free Year round Directions
If you have a toddler and an hour, this is the one. City Hall Park shares its address with the city offices at 1570 West 400 North, and it carries a playground, a walking path, a bowery with picnic tables, parking and restrooms. It is the smallest of the everyday parks and by some distance the easiest to use.
The reason it earns a place above the bigger park is a single word the city leaves off. At Marriott Park and at Slaterville Park the restrooms are marked rental only. At City Hall Park they are not marked at all, which reads as the one set of public restrooms in the city that a walk up visitor can plan on. Call 801-627-1919 first if the day depends on it, but that is the honest reading of what the city publishes.
The move is to do a lap of the walking path while the children are on the playground, then stay for whatever the city has on. This is the ground the city uses for its own things. The garden market sets up here in the warm months, and Breakfast with Santa is here on the second Saturday in December at nine in the morning. On an ordinary weekday it is a quiet green square with a parking lot and a slide, which for a lot of visits is exactly the right size.
The hall next door
The city rents the offices building itself as a hall, with a kitchen, restrooms, and tables and chairs, and it is booked at the same counter as everything else. There is an online application plus a reservation policy and agreement, and the city publishes no fee schedule, so ask what a booking costs when you call. The offices keep short weekday hours and are closed on Friday, so the booking errand is a Monday to Thursday one.
The details
Getting there
This is the city's own address, so it is the easiest thing here to find: 1570 West 400 North, with the parking lot in front of the offices and the park behind and beside them. Coming from 12th Street, turn north and follow 1500 West up to 400 North.
Before you go
- This is the one park where the restrooms carry no rental only note, which makes it the safer choice for a walk up visit.
- The city publishes no park hours, so treat this as a daylight park.
- The city offices keep short weekday hours and are closed on Friday, so make a counter errand a Monday to Thursday job.
- Book the bowery or the hall through the city offices; there is an online application and no published fee, so call 801-627-1919 to ask.
- Check the city calendar before you come. A market or a city event can turn a quiet lap of the path into an evening out.
Catch the city's warm-season garden market
The city offices Free to walk in Warm months Directions
This is the closest thing Marriott-Slaterville has to a town square. The city runs a garden market at its own offices in the warm months and describes it plainly: a chance for residents to sell and buy locally grown produce, crafts and goods. For a city with working farms inside its limits that is not a novelty event, it is the obvious use of the ground.
The move, and it matters, is to check the date first. The city announces the market rather than fixing it to a set day, and the schedules that turn up in a search are often from an earlier year. Look at the city calendar, or call 801-627-1919 and ask when the next one is. Thirty seconds of checking is the difference between a good evening and an empty lot.
It is a small market and it should be judged as one. Expect produce out of gardens rather than a farmers market with fifty stalls, expect to talk to the people who grew it, and expect it to be over in a couple of hours. The city charges vendors nothing for a booth, which is a good sign about what the market is for. If you are weighing an address here, an hour at the market will tell you more about the place than an afternoon driving it.
If you want a booth
The city's own market material says vendor space is free, and it prints a contact for it alongside the main city number. For a household with an oversupply of tomatoes or a craft table, a free booth at a city run market inside a city of about 2,290 is about as low a barrier as small town commerce gets. Ask at the counter or on 801-627-1919, and ask early enough in the season to catch a date.
The details
Getting there
Same address as City Hall Park: 1570 West 400 North, with parking in front of the offices. From 12th Street turn north on 1500 West and follow it to 400 North. The market sets up at the offices rather than in the park proper.
Before you go
- Check the date on the city calendar before you drive; the city announces the dates rather than fixing a set day.
- It is a small, local, cash friendly market. Bring cash rather than expecting a card reader.
- Vendor space is free, and the city prints a contact for it.
- The playground and the walking path are right there, which makes this an easy hour with children.
Read the city's own history, free, at Weber State
Online at Weber State Free Any time
This is the one that surprises people, and it is the reason a city with four parks earns a list at all. Marriott-Slaterville keeps a City Historian as a named officer of the city, that historian prepares a monthly and a yearly history book, and the whole run of it has been digitized and put online by Weber State University as the Marriott-Slaterville City History Collection. It is free, it is searchable, and it is on a university server rather than behind a city login.
The city's own history page is one paragraph long and points straight at it, which tells you where the real record lives. If you have ever wanted to know what a small Utah farm city actually did with itself month by month, this is an unusually complete answer, assembled by the people it happened to. It is also the only honest way to settle the stories that circulate about this place, because the popular versions of the naming and the founding are not printed on anything the city publishes.
The move is to give it an evening rather than five minutes, and start with the Slaterville volumes. Then drive the two old townsites the next morning with the names in your head. That combination, an archive at home and a farm lane in the morning, is the best thing this city has to offer a visitor who is genuinely curious about it, and it costs nothing at all.
Why the archive matters more here than in most towns
Because the alternative sources are thin. The city publishes a single paragraph about its founding and a history page that is mostly a pointer. Almost everything specific that circulates about the two settlements comes from somewhere that does not cite anything. A university hosted collection of the city's own history books, assembled by a serving city officer, is a better class of source than anything else available for a place this size, and it is open to anybody with a browser.
Pair it with the ground
The two old townsites are still legible if you know where to look. Slaterville sits around 250 North and 2200 West on the western side of the city, Marriott sits around 1200 West on the southern side, and the fields between them are the open space the city named itself after. The parks carry the two names, one on each side, which is the plainest map of the merger anybody has drawn.
The details
Getting there
There is nothing to drive to. The collection sits in Weber State University's digital library, and the city's own history page links to it. Search the collection name rather than the city name and you will land in the right place faster.
Before you go
- Search for the collection by name. Searching the city name alone returns mostly property listings.
- The city's own history page is one paragraph and a pointer, so do not expect the story to be on the city site.
- The City Historian is a serving city officer, listed in the staff directory with an extension.
- The naming stories in wide circulation are not printed by the city. If you want them settled, this collection is where to look.
- Free and online means this is the one item on this list that works in January at nine at night.