RATTLESNAKE BAR – FOLSOM LAKE: ANOTHER LOCAL RIDE ‘N’ HIKE

SACRAMENTO AREA MOTORCYCLE RIDERS live in a virtual Mecca of challenging roads. A nearly yearlong riding season means there is little need for gasoline stabilizer; just a nice set of winter gloves – which remained unused this day. The shortened daylight of winter may reduce the radius we may ride from home, but the frequent 60 degree afternoons beg us to take to the road if only for an hour or so.

Rattlesnake Bar Road is an engaging strip of asphalt leading to a little visited campground on the east flank of the Folsom Lake’s North Fork of the American. Unlike the other side of the lake, near Roseville, Rocklin and Granite Bay, the nearest community is Pilot Hill and it boasts perhaps forty-two residents.

Rattlesnake Bar Road, prior to the lake, crossed the American and came out on the north side. There are vestiges of it in both Placer and El Dorado Counties. On the El Dorado side, things appear much more rural. Eighty-year-old barns still function. Remnants of failed hydraulic mining operations dot the landscape. An interesting posted-keep-out quarry boasts old equipment and foundations. Huge swaths of chemise grow where recent once and future wildfires run. There is pasture, oak woodland and farmsteads. A trip to the local 7-11 for a quart of milk takes a half day.

The road is narrow, paved, but recently chip sealed. It rises over rounded hills and descends into minor stream courses. Each turn offers the intrigue of an expansive view or an enchanting glen. And there is virtually no traffic.

THE PENINSULA CAMPGROUND is closed for the season. A gate bars the road but ample room for parking exists by the boarded-up State Park entrance station.

With budget cuts on California’s dark horizon, one can’t help but wonder if the plywood will ever be removed from this structure.

Walking is pleasant along the paved road beyond the gate. Within a turn or two, a half-full Folsom Lake comes into view. Taking a left at a junction, the route skirts what would be the shoreline and heads toward the campground. A well-maintained nature trail invites us to leave the pavement and explore the oaks and grasses, dried shoots of which have been battered down by last week’s storm. New green sprouts push up to take their place.

Breaking off the trail to explore the lake’s bathtub ring, a hunk of sun-bleached drift catches my eye. The shadow of last season’s star thistle lies cross it.

Below the path, in a silt-smoothed draw, a tiny concrete bridge stands. Normally inundated by flood protection, the lime in the concrete has dissolved. From a distance it is hard to determine the directions from which a road might have lead to or from the structure. The shifting of the lake floor beneath the water has markedly changed so much. Still, could this structure have been part of the old Rattlesnake Bar Road?

The banks are bare, but the lake is blue and these dogs are having the best dog day ever. A flock of geese rises when the black one gets too close. He still hasn’t figured out: “If it can fly, you can’t have it.”

The sun is high; the temperature very pleasant. And if we didn’t need the rain so badly, we’d wish each day could be just like this one. Is this heaven? No. This is Folsom Lake.

RETURNING, Rattlesnake Bar Road seems different than it did on the way in. Perhaps it is due to the time of day. Perhaps the eastward rather than westward orientation. Perhaps the position of the late January sun. The hills are golden. Those tiny green shoots have yet to break through. In a couple of weeks however, this section will be carpeted with winter grass and fresh wildflowers. I promise myself a return.

Back at the quarry, I break a personal rule and stop – on the public thoroughfare – for a picture of a derelict steam shovel back on that quarry’s private property. It feels a bit like trespass, but you don’t see one of these every day. The light is poor, so I doctor the photo at home. Perhaps I’ll take a second run at this photo when those flowers appear early next month. There are more – and longer – sixty-degree days yet to come.


TODAY’S ROUTE: I-80 east to Auburn; SR 49 south through the canyon to Cool and beyond. Four miles south of Cool (watch for the big empty brick building on the right) right turn on to Rattlesnake Bar Road. Nine miles into the campground. Return: Retrace Rattlesnake Bar Road, but right on Salmon Falls Road only yards before reaching SR 49 at Pilot Hill; 17 famously sweeping miles into Folsom.

© 2012
Church of the Open Road Press