March 21
Today I am hiking with my BAS group. We have nine people starting from the Conan Ranch trailhead, which is BLM land that has many good trails.
We start off on a dirt access road between two rolling hills. The Hills are covered in new growth grass in multiple shades of green.
As we crest a small hill, which provides an amazing view of the valley in front of us, we take the left fork onto the “down and up trail”. There are Popcorn flowers scattered around the trail side today.
The down and up trail is wider very well maintained and has a gentle rise to it. After a brief bit of time we come to the Sky Ridge trail cut off. This trail is a little narrower and somewhat steeper section.
Miner’s lettuce grows readily at this time of year. It is a very sweet tasting wild lettuce that is edible.
Reaching a halfway point the Sky Ridge Trail offers a beautiful views of the surrounding hills and valleys.
Mule Ears are beginning to sprout with its beautiful, broad and soft green leaves unfortunately, we also have lots of poison oak beginning to come up as well.
Taw-man Root is a green stock that has small white flowers on it.
One of the things that I often marvel at on my hikes is how you’ll be going through an area of fairly flat dirt and grass terrain and then all of a sudden they will just be a single large rock by itself or clumps of rocks sitting there, seemingly by themselves, it shows the power of nature and its intricacies.
I often hike from the Magnolia Ranch trailhead and stop for lunch at this location. Today we started at the Cronin Ranch trailhead, which is a mile or so distant from each other. This spot offers incredible views of the river, Clark Mountain, and the surrounding valley.
The Pacific Hounds Tongue has broad leafs and beautiful purple flowers; also popping up are many different clumps of the yellow buttercup
This small trailside stream caught my eye. I thought it provided a beautiful picture of the water cascading over the rocks
We are about midway down the trail and has come to a nice open spot with the river visible much closer to us. Eventually, the Trail will take us to the rivers edge.
We now are coming off of the connector trail between the skyline and another part of the down and up Trail. This will take us to the South Fork American River shoreline.
As we head towards the river, we met a couple of horses coming back up the trail. This area is popular with horseback riders
We’ve come across a beautiful field of yellow Buttercup flowers with some white popcorn flowers on its edge and moss covered rocks intermixed.
We’ve come right down to the waters edge and are taking a break on some large rocks. Their shapes and smooth surfaces due to the erosion from the river is impressive.
This cabin is very much in this disrepair, but was once a movie set for the 2003 movie “love comes softly”
The trail leads up a very gradual slope through a beautiful green valley that returns us towards our cars. Fittingly this trail is named Long Valley Trail.
We finish the hike with 7 miles traveled and an 1100 foot elevation gain.
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