Cronan Ranch - Nov. '25 

return to index

The hiking group has been to Cronan Ranch, 28 miles south of Auburn on curvy hwy. 49, a few times before, but we've only walked on trails at the western carpark, most of which reach the South Fork of the American River, and back. Earlier this year we walked part of the trail to Satan's Cesspool walk, for instance.  

On Veterans Day, six of us took a trail from the eastern carpark, and had a long stretch at river level, followed by a steep uphill section to an overlook trail.

We were surprised how wooded it was, and from the few highpoints we encountered, no fire damage could be seen.

note - on a pc or laptop you can zoom into any part of a photo, but alas, not on a smartphone. 

	looking upstream near the start		quiescent water (good for stone-skipping)		pacific wild grape
		south fork		in the Sierra foothills
	the hikers		in the woods		huge buckeye seeds
		wild grape again		a great walk !
		south fork watershed, looking upstream, see note 1
	near the lunch bench		Toyon		return walk
		Magnolia Ranch area, see note 2		taken at the start
	see note 3

note 1 - the famous gold mining town of Coloma is just a few miles upstream from here.

note 2 - Magnolia Ranch is a small BLM property surrounded by Cronan Ranch, and provides a second trail access parking area for the walk we did today. (BLM = Bureau of Land Management, often referred to as 'the Bureau of Livestock and Mining'.

note 3 - this is my 2001 Honda Accord, with less than 150k miles, which runs like a top, with an amazingly quiet ride. I'm glad the hikers don't mind riding in this 24 year old car ! I took a photo in a nice setting in case I want to sell it later.   

We walked parts of the Greenwood, Gerle, East Ridge, and Down & Up trails today day, as seen on AllTrails. We left behind a few miles to do at a later time to compete the loop.  

We walked about 4.5 miles with 550 ft of gain. No doubt about it, this trail (at this time of year) really appealed to the group. My guess is we'll probably return in late winter/early spring '26.   

The walkers were Linda, Jean, Diane, Barb G., Heide & me.  

return to index