The landmark Morgan County
Morgan County's signature landmark, a free stop on Interstate 84
Devil's Slide, two limestone walls standing on their edge
Two parallel limestone walls, about 40 feet high, 25 feet apart and several hundred feet long, run straight down the canyon wall in Weber Canyon east of Morgan. The soft rock that once sat between them has washed away, leaving a chute the Utah Geological Survey lists as one of its GeoSights. You see it from a free pullout on Interstate 84 near milepost 111, it costs nothing, and the whole stop takes about a quarter of an hour. A cement plant a few miles up the road carries the same name and is a separate subject with no public access.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
Devil's Slide is a pair of parallel limestone walls in Weber Canyon, about 40 feet high, 25 feet apart and several hundred feet long, seen from a free pullout on Interstate 84 near milepost 111, east of Morgan. It is open every hour because it is a freeway pullout, it costs nothing, and ten to fifteen minutes covers it. The Utah Geological Survey lists it as one of its GeoSights and explains the rock: the Twin Creek Formation, laid down in a shallow sea 170 to 180 million years ago and tilted to near vertical about 75 million years ago. A cement plant a few miles up the road carries the same name and is a completely separate thing you cannot visit.
What it is
Two walls of limestone standing on end, with the soft rock that used to sit between them washed out
The Utah Geological Survey describes the formation in plain measurements: two limestone walls about 40 feet high, 25 feet apart and several hundred feet long, with the softer rock eroded out from between them. That is the whole shape of it, and it is why the name works. The two hard beds held up; the soft, shaly limestone that was sandwiched between them did not; a hundred million years of weather did the rest, and what is left is a chute running down the canyon wall.
The geology behind that is the part worth slowing down for, and the survey tells it in three moves. The rock is the Twin Creek Formation, about 2,700 feet thick, and its sediments formed 170 to 180 million years ago in a shallow sea that covered this part of Utah. About 75 million years ago, folding and faulting during a mountain building episode tilted the layers to a near vertical position. Erosion then exposed them. So the walls are not standing up because something pushed them out of the ground. They are beds that were laid down flat and then rotated onto their edge, and what you are looking at is the side of the page rather than the top of it.
One honest gap is worth naming: no public record settles who owns the ground the formation sits on, and it is not worth a guess. What can be said is the surrounding picture. Morgan County is about 93 percent privately owned, and the cement plant a few miles off quarries its own limestone on site, so a limestone landform beside a limestone quarry sits in a heavily private landscape. That is context, not a title search.
The formation, on the survey's own figures
40 ft
high, on the Utah Geological Survey's measurement of the two walls
25 ft
apart, with the softer rock between them eroded away
2,700 ft
the thickness of the Twin Creek Formation the walls belong to
75 m yrs
since folding and faulting tilted these beds to near vertical
How to see it
Pull off near milepost 111, and give yourself room to reach the right side of the freeway
The viewpoint is a pullout on Interstate 84 near milepost 111. There is no single exact milepost to give, because the Utah Geological Survey gives two on the same page, after milepost 110 in one set of directions and just after milepost 111 in the other. Near milepost 111 is the honest form.
Direction matters more than the milepost, and it is the one thing nobody states outright. Both of the survey's published routes arrive traveling west. From Salt Lake City it sends drivers east on Interstate 80 to exit 134, north on SR-65 to Henefer, then west onto Interstate 84 to the viewpoint. From Farmington it sends them north on US-89, then east on Interstate 84 for about 23 miles to the turnoff. Neither route ever approaches from the east, and nothing on the ground confirms whether the pullout serves both directions.
So if you are driving east out of Ogden, which is how most of the county reaches it, plan for the chance that the viewpoint sits on the far side of the freeway. Keep a sensible speed, and be ready to continue to the next exit and turn around rather than braking late. This is a freeway with heavy freight on it and the only high capacity road in or out of Morgan County.
The stop, at a glance
Before you go
- There is no trail, no walk and nothing to climb. It is a roadside viewpoint, and the ground beyond it is not open to walk on.
- The cement plant is a separate, private site several miles up the road. It is not a place to go looking for.
- Winter is the best light for a photograph: the walls stand out against snow and the low sun crosses the canyon instead of sitting over it.
- The nearest freeway exit is Croydon, which is also the turn for Lost Creek State Park about ten miles north.
The rock and the plant
One name, two places that share almost nothing else
Getting this straight is the difference between a careful description of Devil's Slide and a muddled one. The rock formation and the cement plant sit a few miles apart, and they are as different as a free roadside view and a working factory.
| The rock formation | The cement plant | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Two limestone walls tilted onto their edge | A Portland cement plant with its own quarry |
| Where | A pullout on Interstate 84 near milepost 111 | 6055 East Croydon Road, Morgan |
| Who runs it | No owner or keeper is on public record | Amrize Cement Inc., formerly Holcim (US) Inc. |
| Can you visit | Yes, from the pullout, free, any hour | No, it is a private industrial site |
| How old | Rock 170 to 180 million years old, tilted about 75 million years ago | Cement made here for the better part of a century |
| Status | Standing | Operating, with a 2025 plant upgrade approved |
Different offices keep track of them for different reasons: the state's geologists document the rock, and the state's air quality office regulates the plant. That alone tells you they are two subjects, not one.
The cement plant
A working plant, run today by Amrize, formerly Holcim
Utah's Division of Air Quality issued an approval letter on 2 October 2025 whose opening line does the work. Amrize Cement Inc., formerly known as Holcim (US) Inc., owns and operates the Devil's Slide cement plant near Morgan. That names the operator and confirms the plant is running, from the agency that regulates it, with a date on it. The plant sits at 6055 East Croydon Road, near the Croydon exit off Interstate 84, and the letter records it in Morgan County. The letter is public.
What it makes ties straight back to the geology. In the agency's own description, limestone and sandstone quarried on site, along with iron ore and an alumina source, are ground, mixed and fed into a rotating kiln, where the heat turns them into small stones called clinker; the clinker is then cooled and ground with gypsum into cement. Limestone quarried on site, in a canyon whose most photographed feature is a limestone landform, is no coincidence.
The 2025 letter itself approves an upgrade: a new finish mill and an alternative fuel system, added to a plant classified as a major source under federal air rules. A company installing a new mill is a company that means to keep running, which is the useful thing to know if you are weighing an address at this end of the valley and want to understand what the landmark on the freeway actually is.
When cement started here
Accounts differ, and no single founding year is settled. A federal historic district nomination for downtown Morgan records the Ideal Cement Company organizing in 1907, a few miles from town beside the railroad. The Utah Division of State History says Portland cement has been made at the plant for more than 80 years. Utah air quality records describe the plant as operating since 1947, with major rebuilds in 1996 and 1997. The fair summary is that cement has been made at Devil's Slide for the better part of a century.
On the name: an older state history page still calls the operator Holcim and carries no date, while the 2 October 2025 air quality permit names Amrize and notes Holcim as the former name. When a dated permit and an undated page disagree about who runs a factory, the permit is the live record, and Amrize is the current name.
The river below it
The county calls the Weber a blue ribbon fishery, then stops short of saying where to get in
The Weber River runs the length of this canyon under the freeway and the railroad, and the best word on it comes from the county itself. Morgan County's own Resource Management Plan calls the Weber a blue ribbon fishery and a popular rafting destination and notes that the river divides the county. A county describing its own river that way in an adopted plan is a stronger source than any outfitter's page.
What it does not do is point to a spot. The plan names rafting without mapping it, and Morgan City's things to do list carries rafting and river tubing as headings with no locations attached. There is no public boat ramp or marked put in near Devil's Slide, so anyone planning to float this stretch is arranging access through a commercial outfitter or a landowner. In a county that is about 93 percent private, with the river running through the middle, that is simply how river access works here.
The same private ground explains what the canyon looks like from a car. Between the freeway, the railroad, the river and fenced land on both sides, there is very little in Weber Canyon within Morgan County where the public can stop and walk. The pullout at the rock is one of the few places you can, which is a large part of why it matters to this county. The rest of the corridor, the freeway, the freight line and the commute the whole valley makes down it, is on the canyon and railroad page.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Quick answers
Devil's Slide, answered
In Weber Canyon in Morgan County, at a free pullout on Interstate 84 east of Morgan, near milepost 111. The Utah Geological Survey lists the viewpoint two ways on the same page, after milepost 110 and just after milepost 111, so near milepost 111 is the safe form. Its driving directions run from Salt Lake City, east on Interstate 80 to exit 134 then north on SR-65 to Henefer and west onto Interstate 84, and from Farmington, north on US-89 then east on Interstate 84 for about 23 miles.
Limestone of the Twin Creek Formation, which the Utah Geological Survey describes as about 2,700 feet thick and formed in a shallow sea that covered this area 170 to 180 million years ago. About 75 million years ago, folding and faulting during a mountain building episode tilted the layers to a near vertical position, and erosion then exposed them and removed the softer rock that lay between the two hard beds. What is left is two parallel walls about 40 feet high and 25 feet apart running several hundred feet, with a chute between them. The visitor is looking at bedding planes on their edge.
There is a pullout on Interstate 84, and the direction you approach from matters. Both of the Utah Geological Survey's published routes reach the viewpoint traveling west, and neither ever approaches from the east; nothing on the ground states whether the pullout serves both directions. If you are driving east from Ogden, plan for the chance that it sits on the far side of the freeway, keep a sensible speed, and be ready to continue to the next exit and turn around rather than braking late on a freeway that carries heavy freight.
Yes. Utah's Division of Air Quality issued an approval letter dated 2 October 2025 that names Amrize Cement Inc., formerly known as Holcim (US) Inc., as the owner and operator of the Devil's Slide cement plant near Morgan. The letter approves a plant upgrade, a new finish mill and an alternative fuel system, which is not something a closed plant applies for. The plant is at 6055 East Croydon Road and is classified as a major source under federal air rules.
Amrize Cement Inc., which the state records as formerly Holcim (US) Inc. An older Utah Division of State History page still names Holcim and carries no date, while the 2 October 2025 air quality permit names Amrize, the current name, with Holcim the former one. No employee count for the plant is published anywhere.
Accounts differ, so no single founding year is settled here. A federal historic district nomination for downtown Morgan records the Ideal Cement Company organizing in 1907, a few miles from town beside the railroad. The Utah Division of State History says Portland cement has been made at the plant for more than 80 years. Utah air quality records describe the plant as operating since 1947, with major rebuilds in 1996 and 1997. The fair summary is that cement has been made here for the better part of a century.
No. The plant is a working industrial site with no public access, and the pullout for the rock formation is a separate spot several miles away. The former company village next to the plant is private ground with nothing published to visit. For the county's history, the Morgan County Historical Society keeps an archive open to the public in the old railroad depot in town.
Not really, and that is honest rather than a knock. There is no trail, no walk, no visitor center and nothing to climb; it is a roadside viewpoint, and ten to fifteen minutes covers the stop. In a county where the state parks cover well under one percent of the ground, a free landmark you can see from the freeway earns its place on a drive.
The county rates the river highly and then does not say where to get in. Morgan County's adopted Resource Management Plan calls the Weber a blue ribbon fishery and a popular rafting destination, and Morgan City lists rafting and river tubing among things to do. Neither names a public put in or take out, and about 93 percent of the county is private ground, so river access here usually runs through a commercial outfitter or a landowner rather than a public ramp.
Fifteen minutes off the freeway for the one thing everyone in this county has heard of
Devil's Slide is the easiest introduction Morgan County has, and it costs nothing to stop for. If you are weighing an address at the eastern end of this valley, the plant, the freight line and the freeway are all part of the same corridor, and all three are worth a look on the parcel map before an offer. Tell me which streets you are considering, and I will connect you with a Weber and Morgan partner agent who can drive them with you and stay on the file for the financing side, at no cost to you.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
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