SALT LAKE CITY — A handful of bikers, runners and hikers breezed past Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall on a warm, sunny spring morning as she described the importance of the foothills surrounding the city.
“It’s pretty hard to beat a bike or a run or a walk with this incredible view,” she said, standing from a spot overlooking downtown from the mouth of City Creek Canyon. “When you get up, it’s even better.”
Moments later, she and other city officials took a short hike up a nearby trail to celebrate the opening of the Bonneville Boulevard Trailhead at 650 N. Bonneville Boulevard.
The new trailhead, which links some of the newer trails in the area, features parking spaces and six bike racks, each with the city’s sego lily logo and mural designs from artists selected by the Salt Lake City Arts Council, as well as new trail signs and a dog-waste-bag dispenser station. It’s the first of four new “major” trailheads on track to open over the next few weeks across the city’s foothills network.
Others will be located at:
- Popperton Park, 360 N. Popperton Park Way
- Victory Road, 670 Victory Road
- Emigration Canyon, 2699 E. Sunnyside Avenue
Some will include similar bike racks, toilets, picnic areas and other amenities. A fifth trailhead — a revamped 18th Avenue Trailhead — will be completed after Salt Lake City Public Utilities finishes an infrastructure project in the area next year.
Twenty-five smaller trailheads, mostly with smaller signs and dog-waste stations, will also be added throughout the network, along with over 100 new wayfinding signs.
“While great trails are obviously at the center of a great trail system, thoughtfully designed trailheads help make the trail experience even better,” said Tyler Fonarow, director of trails and natural lands for the Salt Lake City Park and Public Lands Department. “Our new trailheads … represent our investment and commitment to ensuring new and returning trailway users alike feel welcome, safe and prepared to have a world-class outdoors experience without leaving the city.”
Wednesday’s ceremony marked one of the largest updates to the city’s foothills plan since the project hit a snag nearly four years ago.
A revamped foothills plan
After almost four years of planning, Salt Lake City leaders adopted a new foothills master plan in March 2020 to improve the recreational mountain trail system in the 6,000 acres of foothills within city limits. It was approved a week before the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns were instituted, leading to record visitation at city trails, parks and other outdoor spaces.
However, some of the project’s first trail builds didn’t go as planned. Residents and outdoor recreation enthusiasts reported slide-offs and other trail issues from the project’s first phase, prompting the city to pause the plan in September 2021 and review what went wrong.
The city had erred with “inefficient” planning, which resulted in “poor construction quality” and other issues on some of the trails, an independent consulting firm concluded in a final report. The report also found a lack of education on trails that had become decommissioned for repairs and revegetation.
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A one-year break in developing the plan ultimately became a much longer delay, as the Salt Lake City Public Lands completely rewrote the master plan, focusing on land management over trails. The new version, which department officials unveiled toward the end of last summer, features seven distinct foothills districts to narrow down the planning needs and challenges within each zone.
The new trailheads are tied to the “next step” in bringing the master plan to life, said Kim Shelley, executive director of Salt Lake City Public Lands. The city allocated a little more than $1 million toward constructing the new trailheads, which was matched with a state recreation grant.
“This is an exciting milestone in our continued investment in sustainable and accessible outdoor recreation,” she said.
Adding to the network
More expansion plans are underway. Public Lands also began work last year to secure land agreements with the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities, U.S. Forest Service, University of Utah and Utah Division of State Parks — all of which also own land within the foothills — as part of the next phase of project expansions.
A comanagement agreement is being drafted and could be finalized as early as June, Fonarow said. The Salt Lake City Council has already allowed the department to use previously allocated funding to plan and design new trails once an agreement is reached. Planning is expected to pick up soon on the foothill sections between City Creek Canyon and the University of Utah.
The department will need to return to the City Council once it is ready to construct any new trails, which could happen as early as next year. Trails that may not have been “ideally built” during the first phase of the master plan may also be realigned as part of the next steps, which could take place in 2026, he added.
It’s a step toward adding to what the city’s foothills already offer.
“Salt Lake City (is) growing and evolving as a destination for living (and) a destination for quality of life,” Fonarow said. “(Our) access to outdoor recreation is unparalleled.”
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