yesterday, friday, july 3rd– a federal holiday–my husband and i drove up to hike the quarry trail in auburn. as we descended by car along the north fork of the american river, we began to worry. never had we seen so many cars parked along the side of the road. never had we seen so much traffic. maybe this was a mistake.
our hearts sank further when we got to the parking lot of quarry trail—it was blocked off with signboards and appeared to be closed. we turned into the area anyway, just because we needed to turn around, and as we did we saw that a ranger was sitting in the shade near the entry. we rolled down the window and ascertained from him that the lot and park were were open but that it cost $10 to park there.
we happily paid the $10 (you do need cash or check and to fill out a little envelope but they did have pens to do so) and headed down the road to the river. the parking area has been re-done to include handicap parking and a short handicap-accessible trail down to a picnic and refurbished bathroom area.
the road/trail continues from there. it really is more of a gravel fire road than it is a trail which already provides comfort for safe distancing. but even on this busy day with the parking lot nearly full, we passed no more than 6 people (who were heading out and we headed in) on this wide road (which is mostly hot and dry–carry plenty of water).
there are many parts not far in where you can take a pretty steep dangerous scramble down to the river. we opt instead to walk about 2 miles past the part where rafting outfitters put in (they drive in from the other side of the river). where we walk to you are right at river level and there are miles of nice entry points. i both won’t and can’t describe how to get to our favorite place but i will say that we were all by ourselves for 2 hours in absolute bliss with the water plenty cool on a hot day and plenty warm for dunking. three outfitter rafts passed over the course of those hours looking very happy as well.
After our hike, we drove into austin in time for our dinner reservation at 6pm outdoors. see that review to make a great pandemic outing (https://snicholsblog.com/2020/07/4-masks-up-for-tre-pazzi-in-auburn).
