Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts related to hikes I have taken with pictures, location, and history of the region, usually around California.
The South Yuba Trail beginning at Edwards Crossing outside of Nevada City is a popular hiking and swimming destination. To the west of the Edwards Crossing Bridge, built in 1903, is a short hike to the Spring Creek Water which is nice when the water is flowing. On the south side of the South Yuba […]
The North Fork of The Middle Fork trail is a short little hike right off Mosquito Ridge Road. It is so named because it parallels the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the American River. Because the Placer County Water Agency maintains a dam up-stream this part of the river should have flowing water virtually […]
The motivation for the hike into the burn zone of the 2014 King fire in El Dorado County was to hunt for morel mushrooms. My son, who enjoys mushroom hunting, had read morels flourish after forest fires. While we found no morels, we were able to experience the desolation and destruction by one of El […]
Even in the midst of losing my water, grabbing onto poison oak bushes to maintain my balance, and enduring intermittent leg cramps, stumbling down to see the foundation of the historic Birdsall dam and Knickerbocker waterfalls still wasn’t the worst hike I’d taken. My mistake was thinking that I was smarter and stronger than the […]
Even though I had visited the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area Peninsula Campground on many occasions, I had never really hiked the established trail system at this park site until December of 2014. The trails at the Peninsula Campground are nice and wide and easily accommodate hikers, bikers and horseback riders. Developed either from old […]
From the shoreline of Granite Bay Beach Park at Folsom Lake you can probably see where Mr. Reppert was buried in 1849 in an unmarked grave far away from home and family. The death and burial of this gold rush miner comes to us from a fellow traveler and miner who wrote about his experiences in the […]
The Knickerbocker creek and waterfalls are pretty spectacular, if, you can get to them. These seasonal waterfalls through Knickerbocker Canyon are fairly inaccessible because of the steep terrain. Located in the Auburn State Recreational Area Park in Cool, Ca, Knickerbocker waterfalls in the rock lined canyon make for a challenging hike/climb to an area few people ever visit.
The east side of the north fork of the American River is challenging to hike because of the lack of accessibility and rugged terrain along the Folsom Lake. After I discovered the abutment for a bridge on the west side of the river, I had to get to Anderson Island on the other side. Not only was I able to find the suspension bridge cables, I found the ruins of Zantgraf mine which is fairly well preserved.
The low water levels of Folsom Lake in this drought year of 2014 offer unprecedented opportunities for hiking and biking around usually water-logged historical sites. The fully exposed North Fork Ditch offers a relatively flat trail for mountain biking from Beeks Bight up to Horseshoe Bar. At certain locations, you’ll need to park the bike […]
The time spent hiking up to the Sutro Tower was far better spent than the energy wasted on the Hockney exhibit. On any day I’m in the City I tell myself I want to climb the hill the three legged TV antenna rests upon. With a trip to the De Young museum to see a David Hockney exhibition, the weather, time and energy level to hike up a hill all aligned for us to find a way to climb up to the Sutro Tower.
