Cronan Ranch - Oct. '25 

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While the hiking group has been at Cronan Ranch, near Auburn, a few times before, we tended to favor the west entrance with its few trails down to the South Fork of the American River, and back; earlier this year we did part of the West Ridge to Satan's Cesspool walk, for instance.  

This time six of us - on Veteran's Day - were on the east side, a more wooded part of the property, with a lot more time at River level, and later a climbed about 300 ft. to get extended river views. 

We were surprised how wooded this walk was, and after Fleming Meadow, it was good to see no fire damage, anywhere.  

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 attempts		pacific wild grape
		south fork		in the Sierra foothills
	the hikers		in the woods		buckeye seeds
		wild grape again		a great walk !
		south fork watershed, looking upstream, see note 1
	near the lunch spot		Toyon, or California holly
		on the return walk		crossing Magnolia Ranch
	taken at the start		see note 2

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

note 2 - my 2001 Honda Accord V6, with just over 140,000 miles, runs great & everything works, and always has, and it is not for sale. It has an amazingly quiet ride. I'm glad the hikers don't mind riding in this 24 year old car !  (I took a photo in case I want to sell it later.)   

From the lunch spot we looked down on a half-mile stretch of the river, heading west. 

We were on the Greenwood, Gerle, East Ridge, and 'Down and Up' trails today, at Cronan Ranch, as can be seen on AllTrails. In the end I think we walked maybe 4.5 miles with 550 ft of gain. All of us were really pleased with this hike. 

Today's walkers were: Linda, Jean, Diane, Barb G., Heide and me.  

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