Herriman's Trail System Has Only Had One Front Door. This Year It Gets a Second.

On a Saturday morning at Blackridge Reservoir, the gravel lot at the trailhead fills before most of Herriman has had coffee. Bikes stack against the rack in twos and threes, families spread towels on the grass by the beach area, and a handful of riders wait their turn to funnel onto the single access trail that leads to everything else. The reservoir itself is easy water for kayaks and paddleboards, though nobody bothers with a rod since fishing isn't allowed and the pond isn't stocked. What people actually come for is on the hillside behind it: Sidewinder, Diamondback, Eric's Trail, Mustang Loop, all of it reachable from the same patch of gravel that has served as the entrance to Herriman's trail system since the network first broke ground.

That single entrance has worked for over a decade because it had to. This year, for the first time since the singletrack started going in, it's getting company.

One Trailhead, an Entire Trail System

When Herriman's trail builders first laid singletrack into the hills west of the reservoir in 2013, the plan was modest by today's standard: roughly 20 miles of trail, eventually stretching north toward Rose Canyon and Butterfield Canyon. What actually exists now is bigger than that original sketch. The Yellow Fork network, which covers Blackridge and the canyons around it, currently lists 45 trails totaling 49 miles, with 42 of those built specifically for mountain biking. A local nonprofit, the Herriman Hills Trails Alliance, maintains the system alongside city crews and volunteer trail builders.

Ask two different trail-tracking apps how long Eric's Trail actually is and you'll get two different answers, somewhere around 4.7 miles by one count and 12.5 miles by another, depending on whether the measurement includes connecting loops like Mustang. That's not sloppy data. It's a sign of a trail system that grew organically, stitched together by riders and volunteers rather than planned wall to wall from a single blueprint. The reservoir loop itself tells a similar story: for a week or two each May, Herriman City turns that path into the Fallen Officers Memorial Trail to honor officers who died in the line of duty. The rest of the year, it's simply a flat, wheelchair-accessible walk around the water.

What a Single Access Point Means on a Saturday

All of that trail mileage funnels through one main door. Trail-tracking data describes the Blackridge access trail plainly as the route that "sees a lot of traffic" because it's the only way in from the reservoir parking lot. Across the whole city, only a handful of official trailhead parking areas exist. If you've circled that lot twice on a summer Saturday looking for a spot, you weren't imagining the crowd.

Ride-log data collected across the network points to a detail most residents wouldn't guess: April, not July, is the most popular month to ride these trails. Spring's cooler temperatures and green hillsides pull more riders out than the peak of summer does, when afternoon heat on exposed, mostly shade-free terrain sends people looking for water instead. Either way, everyone funnels through the same trailhead, whether they're there in April for the wildflowers or in August for a dip in the reservoir after a lap on Sidewinder.

A Second Front Door Opens in Juniper Canyon

That single point of entry is about to get relief. In August 2025, Herriman's City Council voted unanimously to approve two companion projects at Juniper Canyon, on the opposite side of the city's trail system from Blackridge. Construction was set for the spring and summer of 2026, which puts it happening right now, this season.

The city-funded half of the project includes:

• A new trailhead with parking, restrooms, and a small pavilion
• About 5,800 feet of new multipurpose trail connecting the eastern recreation area to Juniper Canyon Road on both sides of the canyon
• A capital budget of roughly $2.3 million for the trailhead work

Right next to it, a separate piece is being built entirely outside the city's budget. Friends of Herriman, the local nonprofit behind the Herriman Hills Trails Alliance's broader mission, is funding and constructing a progression-based bike jump park near the new western trailhead through grants and donations, not tax dollars. The park is designed for riders from beginner to advanced, using low-maintenance steel ramps from SuperRamp Technologies with dirt landings, built by Better Bike Parks. Until now, anyone in Herriman who wanted that kind of terrain had to drive 20 to 30 minutes to Draper Cycle Park or Eagle Mountain Bike Park.

For a decade, if you lived closer to the west side of the trail system than to the reservoir, you still drove or rode to Blackridge because that's where the door was. This year, that stops being true.

The Same Summer, a Different Kind of Investment

The trail money isn't happening in isolation. Herriman's Hungry Herriman Food Truck Roundup runs every Monday from April 21 through late September at J. Lynn Crane Park, and this year's calendar has only a few Mondays left before the season closes out. The monthly Summer Sunset Series at the same park has leaned hard into the same theme running through Juniper Canyon: getting people, especially kids, onto bikes safely. Earlier this month, the series' Safety Fest brought free helmet giveaways and fittings from Intermountain Health along with a police-run bike and pedestrian safety course, with a chance to win a kids' bike for finishing it. The final installment of the year, the Inflatable Dash on September 14, closes out the season with a family fun run.

None of that is a coincidence dressed up as connection. A city that just committed $2.3 million to a new trailhead and let a nonprofit build a professional jump park next to it is also the city handing out free helmets at its own park a few miles away. Herriman's outdoor identity isn't showing up in one place this year. It's showing up everywhere the city touches recreation, from the canyon to the plaza.

The reservoir loop isn't going anywhere. Families will still spread towels on that beach and cool off after a ride the way they always have. But the crowded gravel lot that has absorbed every rider, hiker, and dog walker headed into Herriman's hills for over a decade is about to have somewhere else to send them. If you've been waiting for a quieter way into these trails, this is the year it opens.

Whether you're weighing a move closer to Juniper Canyon's new trailhead or you already call one of Herriman's neighborhoods home, understanding how a city invests in itself tells you as much about its future as any listing sheet can. Naomi McClure works with buyers and sellers across Herriman and the rest of Utah and Salt Lake Valley, and she's always glad to talk through what a neighborhood is actually building toward. Let's connect.