hiking to the American River

On the recommendation of Russell Towle, Chloe and I took the Stevens trail down to the American River. The hike down was easy (isn't it always?!), if a little hot. If anything, the slow rate of decent in the last half was maddening. The sweeping views more than made up for that minor drawback though.


Once at the river, we waded in


and were both surprised by how warm it was. Schools of fish congreated around the small clouds of bugs hovering just above the water

The hike up was kind of painful. Even though we have happily and with relative ease hiked thousands of feet in elevation in not very much time, this felt like a real slog to us. The combination of the low to mid ninety degree temps, the lack of shade and the slow gradient, chloe being 7 months pregnant and my being in appalling shape made it seem more painful than it would normally I think! All in all it was a nice hike, but I can't really recommend it on a hot summer day -- even leaving the car at 9:30 AM as we did. 5.4 miles round trip according to the GPS.