Gambolin' Man: NORTH FORK AMERICAN RIVER: Checkin' Out Historic Stevens Trail

I've got the car and some time on my hands, so I drive up to Colfax with my mountain bike in tow and hit the trail by 7:30. What a delicious time to be hitting a North Fork trail!

Of course, throughout the years I'd always raced right past Colfax, on my way to "bigger and better places," because, obviously, there's nothing there worth checking out, right.

I mean, Colfax? C'mon! Ah, but how nature's secrets are so slowly revealed sometimes, if at all! I figure, too, with my early start that I can get a jump on any crowds that might descend this multi-purpose and historic trail.

It's just that I'm having doubts about things after reading up on this place on the Internet, with a resigned "oh-well-I-can-deal-with-it" attitude about overflow parking, equestrians, hikers, and bikers galore who cherish the "easy" switchbacking traverse of nearly 1,300 feet and four and a half miles to the river.

I figure I'd have at least an hour, maybe more, of peace and quiet before the hordes arrived. I figure I can always bush up or downstream, too, to find a secluded nook all my own beside lavish pools and hot rocks.

I bid hello, and adieu, to a father (Scott Peterson look alike) and his young son at the trailhead, then tear off down the narrow rocky trail on my Gary Fisher, down, down, winding, winding, veritably zooming along without having to worry about anything or anybody except concentrating on navigating through the obstacle-laden trail – quite technically challenging, even for an "old hand."

More than once, I get off and walk my bike across some sketchy stretches. I do not need to injure myself! Soon, big canyon views open up. Iowa Hill Bridge is way down there on the shimmering ribbon of river.

It's all I can do to occasionally look out and catch glimpses of it without missing a curve or slipping off the edge of the two-foot-wide trail that drops off hundreds of feet to my right. By the time I reach the main level of the North Fork, maybe a hundred or so feet above, I'd encountered exactly two backpackers coming out and one older man trudging along.

The father and son duo eventually reach the river in a couple of hours, and I wave to them as they explore the river in their underwear. This up-close view of the North Fork American River simply stuns me – I had not expected such grandeur!

The river is anfractuous, narrow, and often lazy, gathering here and there in blue-green pools of amazing clarity and depth. One pool in particular at the very end of the trail – where I figure the hordes will soon be descending, for it must be famous among locals and those in the know – absolutely blows me away, instantly jumping to the top five of my all-time favorite pools.

Rimmed by a wall of rock thirty feet high on the south side that curves around like a small amphitheater for twenty feet or more, this legendary limpid pool measures, I'm guessing, sixty feet across and one hundred feet wide, and is, without exaggeration, probably thirty feet deep in places.

I waste no time jumping in, the day already hot this early in the morning. I'm engulfed by the most delicious, velvety and, for the North Fork, warm water I've ever swum in!

It's paradise!

I hang around the pool for a while in slack-jawed amazement at this splendid North Fork wilderness so rife, as the sun rises higher, with life buzzing all around: uncountable numbers of various species of glittering, polychromatic Dragonflies and flittering mottled Butterflies.

And lovely aerial looping Hummingbirds very curious about my presence; darting Lizards; large Trout coming to the water's surface to check me out; many Water Ouzels; and the unmistakable evidence of large Cats (I find their "outhouse"). I gather myself together and hike a thread of the trail upstream, see what I might see.

The rocks along this portion of the North Fork (help me, here, Russell!) are alternately dense and creamy-like; tortured and fractured, of the type seen around the "Red Gorge" at the confluence of Big Granite Creek and the North Fork American River far upstream. The dense, creamy boulders spill down to and beneath the river's surface, disappearing into the bed, sculpted into fantastic shapes and polished smooth as marbles.

One stretch of the river here is particularly lazy, stretching perhaps five hundred feet or more and no deeper than up to the knees, and layered with colorful, shiny rocks that glisten in sunlight like jewels.

An amazingly peaceful and beautiful scene!

Farther along, I hear our old friend, Canyon Wren, singing her loud, clear, joyous whistle, and watch Water Ouzels flirt and skirt at small waterfalls.

Then I hear a muffled sort of gurgling noise and turn to see a pride of ten brown Ducks swimming along in unison. They're so merrily proceeding it makes my heart sing. They have dark brown necks and light brown bodies. I look in my bird book, unable to recognize the species from the pictures.

Who do you think they are, Russell?

At one point, they approach a flurry of water spinning madly about by protruding rocks, and I can see them visibly getting excited, then with aplomb, one by one, they jump the little falls and continue on their way upstream.

By this time, the trail has completely petered out and it's all bush-rocking. Though quite easy going, as these shoreline rocks have excellent hand and footholds.

I estimate I've traversed about a mile upstream. It's always difficult to know mileage on the river. Let's say a good twenty-five minutes' worth at my quickened pace, when suddenly I look up and see a billowing cloud of camp smoke. There's a guy standing up peering out at me from a rock buttress. I get the distinct impression he's of the mind: where the hell do you think you're going?

I stop in my tracks and say, hey, how's it goin'? He grunts back something less-than-pleasant, then disappears into his rock shelter. Seems to be an anti-social loner type. I turn back and let him be in peace.

On the return, I spot a Kingfisher. Apart from the Tern, the Kingfisher is the only small bird that dives headlong from the air into the water to catch Fish. I watch him hover briefly, then hit the water, but coming up empty.

He flies to a perch on a dead tree, and I watch him through my binoculars for five minutes, a gorgeous little bird indeed. I then retrace my steps back to the Big Hole, fully expecting to see it filled with yahoos and revelers . . . but amazingly, no one, except the father and son, are present.

Here it is, a gorgeous hot sunny Sunday in July, and there's no one around! I relish another hour or so swimming, eating blackberries, meditating, and reflecting in solitude, then, just scorched and reddened from the sun (I'd forgotten sun block and my hat!), I hit the trail for the long grueling climb back up.

And what a long, grueling climb back up! No wonder only the hardiest of hikers, and very few, if any, bikers, come down here.

Before it's all over and in the books, I take a side trail down to another spectacular pool for a final swim. A couple is there; that's it. Here the river courses through open bedrock creating waterfalls, waterways, over smooth polished rocks, before spilling languidly into another large pool.

But I know I have to get out of the sun. The main problem down here is lack of shade. The exposure will kill you.

And so, back on my bike, I grunt and grind it out. The first two-thirds are pretty easy going, but the final ascent finds me pushing my bike up nearly the entire way. I am thoroughly trashed and dusty, with a flat tire to boot, by the time I reach the car at three o'clock.

What a thoroughly satisfying day of discovery and fun on the North Fork American River, though! How many other such marvelous, magical, secret places must exist deep in secluded canyons?

Exploring the North Fork where Stevens Trail ends and the river picks up is a revelation in wonder and beauty, surprising in its ever-changing guises and personalities.