Walk or ride the river path from River Cove Trail Head
903 West 17th Street Free Year round, best April to October
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 car park 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 bike trail, trailhead parking and a walking track. That is the whole amenity list, and it is honest. There is no restroom, no drinking water and no shade structure.
The move: 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 manicured trail is not, and that is the appeal. Bring what you need with you, because the nearest published restroom belongs to City Hall Park, three and a half miles away by road.
The one name nobody agrees on
The city has never named the trail its own car park 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 car park at all, and 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 car park is at the end of it. Nothing about the turn is signposted from a distance, so watch the numbers rather than the signs.
Before you go
- No restroom, no tap and no bin. Take water and take your rubbish 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 car park for the better mile. West the surface thins and the ground becomes farmland.
- Nothing published names which bank of the river the car park 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 Open 9 to 9, all year
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 pavilion, a bowery with picnic tables, a kitchen and restrooms, and it posts the gates at nine in the morning to nine at night, every day. For a city of 2,257 that is a genuinely complete park, and on an ordinary Tuesday evening you will have most of it.
The move: 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 that decides whether the day works. The restrooms and the kitchen here are marked rental only, and the city means it literally: its own booking terms say the kitchen and restroom doors are unlocked at the exact times listed on a reservation. If nobody has booked, assume they are 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.
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 actually attend without a parking plan.
Booking the bowery, and when
The city takes park reservations from 15 April to 15 October and asks you to make them in person at the counter at 1570 West 400 North, with 801-627-1919 extensions 202 and 209 for questions. Payment is by cash, cheque or card, in person or by phone, and the city notes that a card payment carries a processing charge. The responsible person on the booking has to stay at the park for the hours reserved. None of that is unusual; all of it is easier to know before you drive over.
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
- Restrooms and the kitchen are unlocked only for a booking, at the exact hours on the reservation.
- Gates are posted 9 in the morning to 9 at night, and the city notes hours can change for an event.
- There is almost no shade outside the bowery. On a summer day, come early or come late.
- Reservations run 15 April to 15 October and are made in person at the city offices, not online.
- 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 Open 9 to 9, all year
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 track, a bowery with picnic tables, parking and restrooms. It is the smallest of the useful 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. Ring 801-627-1919 first if the day depends on it, but that is the honest reading of what the city publishes.
The move: do a lap of the walking track 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 runs here, Breakfast with Santa is here on the second Saturday in December at nine in the morning, and the senior program meets in the building beside it. On an ordinary weekday it is a quiet green square with a car park and a slide, which for a lot of visits is exactly the right size.
The hall next door, and when you can have it
The city rents the offices building itself, and the published hours tell you something useful about the city: the hall is available Monday to Thursday from half past four in the afternoon until nine at night, and Friday, Saturday and Sunday from nine in the morning until nine at night. In other words it is bookable in the hours the offices are not working. It comes with a kitchen, restrooms, internet, parking, water and step free access, and it is booked at the same counter as everything else.
What is on here through the year
More than the city's headline calendar suggests. Alongside the December breakfast and the market, the city has published a Seed and Greet in March, an Art in April program with its own application form, family dinner nights in the late summer, and a monthly senior calendar with sessions like yoga and lunch in the building. All of it is posted on the city calendar and in the monthly newsletter rather than on any listings site.
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 car park 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.
- Gates are posted 9 in the morning to 9 at night, the same as the other city parks.
- The city offices keep short weekday hours and are closed on Friday, so make a counter errand a Monday to Thursday job.
- Park and hall bookings both run 15 April to 15 October and are made in person here.
- Check the city calendar before you come. A market or a family dinner night can turn a quiet lap of the track into an evening out.
Go to the garden market on a Friday evening
The city offices Free to walk in Friday evenings in the warm months
This is the one hour a week Marriott-Slaterville has a town square. The city runs a garden market at its own offices and describes it plainly: an opportunity 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: check the date first. The evening slot is recent, the schedule that turns up in most searches is a Saturday morning one from an earlier year, and the two are not the same market. Look at the city calendar, or ring 801-627-1919 and ask when the next one is. Thirty seconds of checking is the difference between an evening out and a locked car park.
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 two hours. The city charges vendors nothing for a space, which is a good sign about what the market is for. If you are weighing an address here, an evening standing in that car park will tell you more about the place than an afternoon driving it.
Why the published dates keep contradicting each other
Because two versions of this city's website are both online and only the newer one is looked after. The current address carries the live calendar, the facilities with their hours, the staff directory and a monthly newsletter. The older one still answers, and what it answers with is out of date in places. Search results do not distinguish between them. If two pages disagree, take the one with a calendar on it.
If you want a stall
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 pitch at a city run market inside a city of 2,257 is about as low a barrier to entry 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
- Confirm the date on the city calendar before you drive. The market has been running Friday evenings this year, not Saturday mornings.
- Six to eight in the evening is the window the city has been posting.
- 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 track 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 digitised 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: 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, no general plan, 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.
Which one to pick
Four city addresses, and what each is actually good for.
The parks here are not interchangeable and the differences are practical rather than aesthetic. One has the court and the diamond, one has the reliable restrooms, one is a soccer pitch and nothing else, and one is shut. Here is the ledger, with the city's own amenity wording behind each row.
| The place | What it has | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| City Hall Park, 1570 West 400 North | Playground, walking track, bowery, parking, restrooms with no rental note | A short visit with small children, and anything that depends on a restroom |
| Marriott Park, 1025 South 1200 West | Basketball, softball, playground, pavilion, bowery, kitchen and restrooms marked rental only | Ball games, an evening, and the Fourth of July |
| River Cove Trail Head, 903 West 17th Street | Bike trail, trailhead parking, walking track. No restroom, no water | A ride or a walk along the Weber, with everything carried in |
| Heritage Park, 1359 West 700 South | Soccer, and nothing else on the city's list | A pitch for a team that already knows it is coming |
| Slaterville Park, 250 North 2200 West | Baseball, basketball, soccer, bowery, kitchen and restrooms, all currently behind a construction closure | Nothing, until the city lifts the notice |
Every amenity above is the city's own wording from its facilities pages, read on 27 August 2026. The city posts park hours of 9 in the morning to 9 at night and takes bookings in person from 15 April to 15 October.
The other two park sites
One is a soccer pitch, and one is behind a construction fence.
Heritage Park at 1359 West 700 South is a pitch and nothing else. The city's amenity list for it is one word, soccer, with no playground, no bowery, no restroom, no picnic table and no reservation contact. The two adjoining city parcels there come to roughly two and a half acres between them, which is about right for one pitch and a verge to park on. A team that already knows it is coming will find what it needs; anybody driving over expecting a park will not.
Slaterville Park at 250 North 2200 West is the bigger loss, because it carries the longest amenity list the city publishes: baseball and softball, basketball, a bowery, a kitchen, restrooms and soccer. Its facility page gives the closure and nothing else, with no reopening date, no scope and no project page behind it. It is also the only park on the western side of the city, which is why the closure lands harder on that side of town than anywhere else.
One thing to read alongside it. The Utah Transportation Commission approved a project at State Route 126 and 250 North in June 2025, and 250 North is this park's own street. So the west end of the city has more than one thing going on at once, and a household weighing an address out that way should ask the city about both in the same call.
The useful sentence about parks in this city is not on any review site. It is the line in the city's own booking terms saying the restroom doors open at the exact times on the reservation.
Booking a bowery
One counter, one window, and a spring errand that decides your summer.
Three of the city's park sites have a bowery with picnic tables that can be reserved, and so can the city offices building, which doubles as a hall. There is no booking site. The city takes reservations in person at the counter at 1570 West 400 North, in a window that runs from 15 April to 15 October, with extensions 202 and 209 on 801-627-1919 for questions.
Two conditions in the city's own terms are worth reading before you drive over. A reservation is not finalised until the fee is paid, the rules have been read and the form is completed and submitted, so a phone conversation on its own is not a booking. And the person responsible has to stay at the facility for the hours reserved, which rules out dropping a party off and coming back for it. Payment is cash, cheque or card, taken in person or over the phone, and a card carries a processing charge.
Then there is the timing, which is specific to this city. The offices keep short weekday hours and close on Friday, so the booking errand is a Monday to Thursday job in a window that overlaps most working days. If a July Saturday at the bowery matters, walk in during the second half of April rather than the second half of June.
The city offices themselves are the interesting one. Their published rental availability is Monday to Thursday from half past four in the afternoon until nine at night, and Friday, Saturday and Sunday from nine in the morning until nine at night, which is to say the building is bookable in the hours the staff are not in it. It comes with a kitchen, restrooms, internet, water, parking and step free access.
| The site | What the city rents there | What that means on the day |
|---|---|---|
| City Hall Park | A bowery with picnic tables | The restrooms carry no rental note, so a walk up visit works either way |
| Marriott Park | A bowery with picnic tables and a kitchen | The kitchen and restroom doors open only for the booked hours |
| Slaterville Park | A bowery with picnic tables and a kitchen | Nothing at all, while the construction closure stands |
| The city offices | The building as a hall, with a kitchen and restrooms | Evenings Monday to Thursday, and all day Friday to Sunday |
| Heritage Park | Nothing listed on the facilities index | A pitch, in daylight, with no facilities of any kind |
| River Cove Trail Head | Nothing | A car park and a paved path, with no restroom and no water |
Read at the city's facilities pages on 27 August 2026. No fee schedule is published online, so the amount is a question for the counter or for 801-627-1919. No acreage appears here either: the state gives two different figures for one park and the county gives a third for another, and the city itself publishes none.
Living with it
The same five, when you are not a visitor.
A household that lives here uses this list completely differently. The river car park stops being a destination and becomes the place you walk the dog before work. The two parks become the bowery you book in April for a birthday in July, and the counter at 1570 West 400 North becomes a place you have actually been. The market becomes the Friday you do not cook. And the archive becomes something you dip into on a winter evening rather than a novelty.
The resident arithmetic is mostly about the booking window and the counter. Reservations run 15 April to 15 October and are made in person, which means the good summer Saturdays go to the households who walked in during April. If a July party matters, that is a spring errand, and the city offices keep short weekday hours with Friday closed, so it is a Monday to Thursday spring errand.
The other resident move is simply knowing what this city does not have, because four of the five things on this list are small and the alternatives are all next door. There is no pool, no recreation center and no library branch inside the limits. What there is instead is fifteen minutes to a city with all three. The page on moving here sets out where each of those actually is.
What this list deliberately leaves out
- The Golden Spike Event Center at 1000 North 1200 West, which is Ogden's parcel. The city line runs immediately west and north of it and Farr West begins a third of a mile further north, so the fairgrounds are a neighbour rather than an amenity.
- Fort Buenaventura, which is a Weber County park on Ogden ground about four miles from the city offices, and the Ogden Nature Center, which is Ogden's and is the nearest large outdoor destination to this city at about a mile and a half.
- The Halloween trunk or treat. The city's own page restricts it to residents and their families, so it is a resident item and never an invitation.
- The Weber River corridor as a whole, its trailheads downstream and the argument about how long it is, which are one page for the whole region. This list uses this city's own car park and leaves the rest there.
- Ogden Canyon, the two ski resorts above it, the reservoirs behind them and the historic main street downtown. None of them is in this city and all four have their own pages on the region hub.
