Flagstaff Hill - A hike along the South Fork of the American River on Folsom Lake

Fall has arrived in California and with it the first winter storms. My plans for the Sierra Nevada were cancelled the night before due to extensive snowfall in the Tahoe area. As an alternative I planned to visit Flagstaff Hill, a mountain on Folsom Lake which should give me a rather good view of the Lake and the surrounding area.

The official Trail Head parking is on the north side of the bridge which goes over the South Fork of the American River on Salmon Falls Rd, it's called "Skunk Hollow". Since this is part of a California State park, a day parking fee of 10$ is required. In case you want to avoid that fee, there's a few parking spaces available on the south side of the bridge.

The trail starts on the east side of the street (north of the bridge) and is marked "Darrington Trail", it follows the lake. Since the trail is designed for a "full lake" it makes little loops into the side valleys, in particular the "Indian Creek" and the "Big Ravine". On low water levels like on this day one can take the shortcuts and there is no need to hike into the side valleys.

In order to climb Flagstaff Hill I have to leave the Darrington Trail at the northernmost point in the Hancock Creek valley. The trail winds up the east side of the mountain and gets to the ridge about 0.7 miles north of the highpoint. The last stretch up to Flagstaff Hill then follows the ridge along a gravel road. However, the road does not go to the actual highpoint but the slightly lower false summit southwest of it. There is an old car and lots of other trash laying around there...

In order to get to the highest point I actually have to search quite bit and get stuck in terrible bushwhack as well. The "easiest" access I find to the triangulation mark is from the gravel road exactly west of the highpoint. Some minor bushwhack can't be avoided but I am obviously not the first one to do this. The view from up there is kind of disappointing. Even though here and there you get a glimpse of how nice the view could be, it is mostly foliage you see due to the dense and relatively high vegetation :-(

After a break near the top I retrace my steps back, with the exception that I walk along the lake level instead of following the path for the last mile. The whole round-trip is about 14 miles (22.5 km)