Pick me up at the Negro Bar

What sounds like a politically incorrect statement is what I told my wife the other day: "Can you pick me up at the Negro Bar?" However, I didn't go out to have a drink in a bar, but asked her to pick me up at the "Negro Bar" State Park, after I walked there from home. "Negro Bar" is the site which was mined by African Americans during the California Gold Rush, a large sand bar located on the bank of the lower American River, in what is now the City of Folsom.

There are many such "bars" along the American River between Sacramento and Folsom: Mississippi-, Sailor-, Texas Hill-, Rossmore-, Sacramento or the already mentioned Negro Bar. They are often named after the people who predominately mined for gold at a specific location. The scars of the heavily mined stretch along the American River between Sacramento and Folsom are still omnipresent and you'll also find mining artifacts laying around in many places.

The main purpose of the "bars" along the river these days is wildlife & recreation area as well as a buffer for flood control. Numerous regional parks, the so-called "American River Parkway" and some State Parks can be found along the river. A bike and a horse & foot path follow the river from Downtown Sacramento all the way to Folsom.

This report is not exactly a specific hike I did, but a collection of some of my walks along the river during the last 4 1/2 months. Besides the main horse/hike path, none of the trails are actually marked and only a few of them are shown on maps. I recorded some gps tracks* of some of the paths (mostly in Fair Oaks) which might be helpful. I was a little surprised when I added up the mileage of all the tracks: almost 200 miles (more than 300 km), especially because the recorded tracks are maybe 2/3rds of all the walks I did in this time period.

Some remarks:

• My favorite walks are between the Jim Jones Bridge (aka Footbridge) in Fair Oaks and the Harold M. Richey Memorial Bridge in Carmichael. There are many many paths and use trails in this area and I still haven't walked all of them. On these paths you hardly ever encounter much civilization and only few other hikers.
• My longest hike was almost a marathon, about 40km from Fair Oaks all the way to Old Sacramento, in downtown 'Capital City'.
• During the hot summer and even late into fall, a jump into the river is always welcome. Due to the fact that the river is fed from the water at the bottom of Folsom Lake, it's temperature is always cool, less than 68F (20C) even if the air temperature is in the triple digits (>40C).
• Floating down the river on rafts is extremely popular on weekends during the summer months and it can get quite crowded then.
• Fishing is a popular sport along the river almost all year round (some restrictions), but especially in late September & October when the King Salmon come to spawn here from the Pacific Ocean.
• Most of the trails are easy T1 hikes. However, the orientation along the banks of the river is surprisingly difficult and I even got "lost" once or twice. The reason for the somewhat difficult orientation is because the terrain is mostly flat, the river doesn't flow in a straight line and the slightly wooded area hardly ever gives you a good overview of where you are. In addition old mining roads and paths often turn slowly, even go in circles and sometimes just lead to "nowhere". Luckily there is the river which only flows in one direction :-)
• The fauna an flora along the river is amazingly diverse and wild. Thousands of birds from vultures, cormorants, geese, herons, wild turkeys to eagles, hawks and sea gulls. You might run into skunks, fish otters, beavers, dear, coyotes, mountain lions, rabbits, raccoons, frogs, turtles or even the dreaded rattlesnakes. The flowers and trees along the river are special as well and some of them endemic to California or Western North America.

* Notice: the gps tracks mostly follow paths, but not always! You might even get wet if you strictly follow them, because some river crossings might not be on bridges, jumps into or walks in the river might be included as well...