Book a night on the trail at Prevedel Park
1300 S 2300 W Booked by telephone Park open 6 AM to 10 PM
This is the entry that made me want to write about West Haven at all. The city publishes, in one sentence on its parks page, that it has a number of overnight camping spots on the trail just north of the city cemetery. That is the whole description. No fee, no season, no site count, no photograph, no online booking form. A city of twenty five thousand quietly rents you a place to sleep beside a river trail, and it does it the way a small town does everything, by telephone.
The move: call Parks and Recreation on 801-731-8882 well before you want to go, and ask all four of the questions the page does not answer. What does it cost, how many nights can you stay, how many spots are there, and where are you meant to leave the vehicle. That last one matters because the same page carries a citywide park rule against overnight parking and does not reconcile the two. The river page lays out everything the city does publish about this ground, which is more than you would expect once you add up the hours, the rules and the cemetery record next door.
What the city actually publishes about it
Prevedel Park Campground is listed among the city's ten parks at 1300 South 2300 West, with the same hours as every other park, six in the morning to ten at night, and the same ten rules. Booking runs through the Parks and Recreation office at 2825 West 3300 South, which is inside R. Kenneth Baldwin Country Park on the other side of the city, on 801-731-8882, Monday to Thursday from nine to five. There is no Friday. That four day office week is the thing that catches people out, every time.
What circulates about it, and why none of it is here
Directory and trail app listings for this ground add hookups, potable water, a loop trail and a one night limit. None of that appears anywhere the city publishes, and a campsite is exactly the kind of booking where turning up on the strength of somebody else's listing goes badly. Plan on the assumption that you are getting a spot on a path in a city park, take what you would take to a primitive site, and let the phone call correct you upward.
The details
Getting there
The Ogden street grid does the navigating out here, and West Haven is the easiest city in the county to read from a street sign. The campground sits at 1300 South and 2300 West, in the city's northeast corner, and the city cemetery at 1550 South 2350 West is the landmark: the camping is just north of it. Coming off the freeway, the 21st Street interchange is the nearest door into this corner of the city. From City Hall at 4150 South 3900 West it is about five miles of flat section road, north and east, in ten or twelve minutes.
Before you go
- Ring 801-731-8882 Monday to Thursday between nine and five. The office is shut on Friday and there is no online booking.
- Ask what it costs, how many nights are allowed, how many spots exist and where to park. The city publishes none of the four.
- The park rules apply and they are strict: no alcohol or glass containers, smoke free, no fireworks, pets on leashes, no motorised vehicles on the lawns, and the parks carry video surveillance.
- Bring your own water and light. Nothing published by the city promises either at this site.
- No body publishes a winter maintenance policy or any lighting for this reach of trail. Winter use is permitted, which is not the same as cleared.
Walk or ride the west end of the river trail
West end at 1500 S 2350 W Free Year round, unlit
The Weber River leaves Ogden, passes under the freeway and runs west across the top of this city toward the lake, and a trail runs with it. The Trails Foundation of Northern Utah keeps the record for this stretch under the name the West Haven Trail and grades it easy, and its published west end is 1500 South 2350 West, which is the cemetery corner. It is the flattest, quietest, least discovered piece of walking in Weber County, and on a summer evening it is almost entirely yours.
Two honest warnings before you plan a distance around it. The length is disputed: the trail organization's current record says 5.50 miles and a Weber County pathways plan endorsed back in 2010 says 2.2 miles of asphalt. Nobody has reconciled them and I am not going to average them for you. And the accessibility flag matters: the same organization marks the Ogden River Parkway as adaptive friendly and marks this trail as not. The river page carries both facts with the bodies that published them.
The strangest thing about this trail
West Haven City's own parks page lists ten parks with addresses, publishes its rules, publishes its pavilion bookings and offers a downloadable trail map, and never once uses the words river, trail name or parkway in its text. The city will rent you a campsite on the thing and will not tell you what the thing is called. The name comes from the trail organization instead. It is not a criticism, it is just an unusual gap, and it explains why so little practical information about this reach exists anywhere.
What is and is not allowed on it
The trail organization's own record marks hiking, biking, dogs, electric bikes and winter use as permitted, and horses as not permitted. Adaptive access is marked no. There is no published surface, no published trailhead list and no published parking for any West Haven access point, so treat the cemetery corner as your reference and expect to park considerately on the street rather than in a marked lot.
The details
Getting there
Aim for the cemetery at 1550 South 2350 West, because it is the only address on this end of the trail that any body publishes and it is easy to find on the grid. The corridor runs east from there toward the freeway and on toward the confluence of the Weber and the Ogden rivers, which is Ogden city ground and a subject of its own. From the middle of West Haven it is a five mile drive north and east on flat section roads.
Before you go
- There is no published parking at any West Haven access point. The city's only parking rule for its parks is that there is no overnight parking.
- The trail organization marks this reach not adaptive accessible, the opposite flag from the Ogden River Parkway upstream.
- Horses are not permitted. Dogs, bikes and electric bikes are.
- Take water. There is nothing on this end of the corridor and the city publishes no drinking fountain at any access point.
- No city, county or trail body publishes an open closure on this reach, but no one publishes a condition report either, so check the weather and the river level yourself in spring.
Come for West Haven Days, the fourth weekend in June
Country Park Admission not published Late June, every year
One week a year this city is not a bedroom community. West Haven Days runs on the fourth weekend in June, a rule the city publishes rather than a date it has to reissue, and the volunteer roster behind it is longer than the city's own website: a rodeo pageant, mutton bustin', a youth rodeo, cowboy mounted shooting and an open rodeo, plus a parade, a car show, a flapjack breakfast, a pickleball tournament, a baby contest, a kids fair, dinner in the park, a movie in the park, a concert, a free swim day and a firework show.
The move: treat the rule as the plan and the details as the perishable part. Put the fourth weekend in June in the diary now, then check the organizer in the spring for what is happening when, because they publish the event names months before they publish a single time or venue. The calendar page carries the full roster and the four other city events that run on their own rules through the rest of the year.
Nineteen named events and not one published time
The organizer lists every event and publishes no time, no venue and no fee for any of them, and the parade page shows its route as a picture rather than as street names. So a visitor planning a specific morning cannot do it from what is published today, and any schedule you find on an aggregator was not issued by the organizer. What you can plan on is the shape: a rodeo strand, a parade morning, a food and market strand, and a night that ends with fireworks.
The one thing to know about the swim day
A free swim day is on the roster and West Haven has no swimming pool. The venue is not published anywhere, which means it is almost certainly a neighbouring city's facility, and I am not going to guess which one and send you to the wrong gate. Ask the organizer or the city on 801-731-4519 before you build a hot afternoon around it.
The details
Getting there
The venue is not published by the organizer, and the city's own guide places it at R. Kenneth Baldwin Country Park at 2825 West 3300 South, which is also where the recreation office and the arena pavilion sit. That is about two and a half miles from City Hall on 3300 South, six to eight minutes on ordinary days and considerably longer on a parade morning.
Before you go
- The city's rule is the fourth weekend in June and it does not move. Everything else about this week does.
- The organizer's own site currently prints two different end dates for the 2027 edition, one page saying it finishes on the Saturday and another saying the Sunday. Take the rule, not the date.
- No parade route, staging point or start time is published as text. Do not plan a kerbside spot from a map image somebody else redrew.
- The citywide park rules are in force at the venue: no alcohol, no glass containers, no fireworks brought by attendees, and pets on leashes.
- Parking is not published by anybody. Arrive early on the parade morning and expect to walk in.
Take a morning at R. Kenneth Baldwin Country Park
2825 W 3300 S Free Open 6 AM to 10 PM, all year
If West Haven has a middle, this is it. R. Kenneth Baldwin Country Park at 2825 West 3300 South holds the city's two largest pavilions, a playground, the arena the recreation department books, and the Parks and Recreation office itself. It is the venue for the big June week, the address you ring for a campsite, and the place a household with an hour to spare actually goes.
The two pavilions are the reason to plan rather than turn up. The Large Pavilion takes twenty six tables and the Arena Pavilion takes eight, and both come with electricity, a kitchenette and restrooms, which is a better standard of shelter than most city parks in this county offer. They book from 15 April to 15 October, on a seventy five dollar cleaning deposit paid by check, in one of two time slots a day or as a full day. The parks page compares all four bookable pavilions in the city, because Sports Park and Stonefield Park have their own.
What the city publishes and what it does not
Table counts, electricity, kitchenette, restrooms and playground access are all published for the pavilions here. Acreage is not published for this park or for any other in West Haven, and neither is parking. There is a published entrance on 3300 South and there are published hours, six in the morning to ten at night, with the added line that reservations end promptly at ten. Anything beyond that is best confirmed by telephone rather than assumed.
The arena, and the one thing nobody has written down
The city names an Arena Pavilion here and lists a park and arena reservation among the things you can book through the Parks Department, and the rodeo events in June happen on this ground. What the city does not publish anywhere is an arena capacity, a surface, or a rental rate. So the arena is real, bookable and completely undescribed, which for a researcher is frustrating and for a visitor simply means asking at 801-731-8882.
The details
Getting there
Head to 3300 South and 2825 West, which on this grid is a straightforward run north and east from City Hall at 4150 South 3900 West, about two and a half miles and six to eight minutes. The Parks and Recreation office shares the ground, which is handy: if you are booking anything at all in this city, this is the counter.
Before you go
- Book a pavilion between 15 April and 15 October, on a seventy five dollar cleaning deposit by check, in one of two daily slots or as a full day.
- Reservations end promptly at ten at night and the parks close at the same hour.
- Bring your own charcoal and your own shade if you are not under the pavilion. The city publishes neither.
- The office is at the park, on 801-731-8882, Monday to Thursday from nine to five only.
- Sports Park at 4215 South 3900 West is effectively the City Hall park and has a pavilion of its own, with five large tables and no kitchenette.
Base a trip at the RV park nobody files under West Haven
1483 W 2100 S Rates not published Open all year
Century Mobile Home and RV Park sits on the city's northeast corner at 1483 West 2100 South, and it is the practical answer to where you sleep here if the city's trail spots are not what you had in mind. The operator publishes 192 sites across private and park owned mobile homes, long stay recreational vehicles and daily and weekly sites; full hookups at thirty and fifty amps; room for rigs up to seventy three feet; a swimming pool, a hot tub, laundry, free wireless, a dog park, a pavilion and a sports park. It says plainly that it is open year round.
The reason it is on this list rather than buried in a directory is that almost nobody files it correctly. Its own address says West Haven, the federal boundary layer agrees with its own address, and the travel directories that carry it file it under Ogden. If you are searching for somewhere to park a trailer near Ogden and filtering by city, this one will not appear. That is the entry: a real, year round, full service place to stay, invisible to the search most people run.
What is published and what you have to ring for
The operator publishes the site count, the amenities, the rig length, the hookup amperage and the office hours, which run eight in the morning to eight at night in summer and eight to five in winter, with after hours check in available. It publishes no rates at all and directs callers to the park on 801-731-3800. Nothing on its site mentions the river or a trail, so do not book expecting a river view; nobody has published which loops face the water, if any do.
Where this sits in the city
This corner of West Haven is the industrial and commercial end, along 21st Street and 1900 West, which is the city's own description of it. The freeway is close, which is why the park is easy to reach and why it is quieter to walk west from here than east. The river trail's published end is a couple of miles further west along the same corner of the city, so a stay here and a morning on the trail work together.
The details
Getting there
The 21st Street freeway interchange is the door into this end of West Haven, and 2100 South and 1483 West is a short run west of it on the grid. From City Hall in the middle of the city it is about five miles north and east on flat section roads, ten or twelve minutes.
Before you go
- Ring for rates. The operator publishes none, and an aggregator's price for this park is not the operator's price.
- Office hours are eight to eight in summer and eight to five in winter, with after hours check in available.
- Sites take rigs up to seventy three feet with thirty and fifty amp full hookups, which is longer than many parks in the county allow.
- Search directories under Ogden as well as West Haven, because most of them file this park under Ogden despite the operator's own address.
- Nothing published mentions the river. Ask at booking if a water view matters to you.
What it costs
Almost nothing, and the two exceptions are both bookings.
West Haven publishes no admission charge for anything it owns. Every park is free to walk into, the trail is free, and the events the city runs do not gate the ground. The only city money in the published record attaches to bookings and to the cemetery, and even there the city publishes a deposit rather than a rental rate for the pavilions. Here is the whole ledger, with the body that sets each figure named, because in this city the operator and the price setter are not always the same organization.
| What | What it costs | Who sets it |
|---|---|---|
| Every city park, and the river trail | Nothing, at any hour the parks are open | West Haven City, which publishes no admission for anything |
| A pavilion at Country Park, Sports Park or Stonefield Park | A seventy five dollar cleaning deposit by check; no rental rate is published | West Haven City Parks and Recreation |
| A night on the trail at Prevedel Park | Not published; arranged by telephone | West Haven City Parks and Recreation |
| The Barn, 3785 South Green Farm Way, up to 124 people | No fee or deposit is published | West Haven City |
| The Community Room at City Hall, up to 40 people | No fee is published; free to residents aged 60 and over in business hours | West Haven City |
| A cemetery plot | From $550 flat or $650 raised for a resident, $1,000 or $1,100 otherwise | West Haven City |
| A site at Century Mobile Home and RV Park | Not published; the operator directs callers to the park | The operator, on 801-731-3800 |
Every figure above was read at the body that charges it in August 2026. Where a line says not published, that is the finding rather than an omission: the city genuinely does not print a rate for its pavilions, its camping, its barn or its community room, and the telephone is the only route to the number.
Living with it
The same five, when you are not a visitor.
A household here uses this list differently, and the difference is mostly the booking calendar. The pavilions open for reservation on 15 April and close on 15 October, in two slots a day or as a full day, and the good slots at Country Park in June go early because the same ground carries the city's biggest week. The Barn on Green Farm Way is the indoor version of the same problem: up to 124 people, available any day from nine in the morning to nine at night, first come first served, and no published fee, which means the only way to know where you stand is to call City Hall on 801-731-4519.
The other resident move is to treat the recreation department as the main event rather than the parks. West Haven runs youth baseball, softball, machine pitch, t-ball, basketball, hockey, flag football, tackle football, tennis, pickleball, karate, fishing, archery and an outdoor camp, with sign-ups through its own sports portal and schedules on a separate scores site. Two of those are worth a raised eyebrow, because a city with no published fishery and no published range still runs a fishing program and an archery program, and it does not publish where either happens.
And the third is that the free half of this city does not check the calendar. Ten parks, one rule book, one set of hours and a river trail at the north end do not close for a season or a day of the week. The parks page is the ledger for all ten, and the region topics carry the canyon, the reservoirs and the bench for the days you want to leave the flats.
What this list deliberately leaves out
- The wetlands and the wildlife area west of the city, which are reached through Hooper and are that town's subject rather than this one's. The corridor that gets you there is on the river parkways page.
- The whole of the river corridor upstream of this city: the confluence, the Ogden reach, the kayak park and the trailheads in Riverdale, all of which are one page, reach by reach.
- Ogden's museums, its depot, its dinosaur park and its main street, which are six miles northeast and have their own pages. The street itself is on its own page.
- Ogden Canyon, the two ski resorts and the two reservoirs, none of which is within forty minutes of here on a winter morning. They are on the canyon page, the resorts page and the reservoirs page.
- The bench trails and the peak above Ogden, which start at the ends of other cities' streets and are on the bench page.
- Restaurants and shops. No public body publishes a business list for this city, and a list built on two or three names from a relocation guide goes stale faster than anything else on a page like this.
