Beacroft Trail - North Fork of the American River

From Beacroft Trail 2008

Michael and I took our first backpacking trip of the season last weekend. We hiked down the Beacroft Trail to the North Fork of the American River in the Tahoe National Forest. The Foresthill Ranger District has a nice collection of trail maps for the area.

This hike is very similar to the Italian Bar Trail that we took last summer. Both trails are classified by the Forest Service as "Most Difficult" because you descend (and later ascend) about 0.6 miles vertically in 2.2 miles. It's very steep; it takes about one hour to hike down, and about two hours to hike up. The trail is beautiful, but I think I actually liked the Italian Bar Trail a little better -- it has a gold mine and a lot of old mining gear scattered around. That being said, we found an excellent camp site along the river and enjoyed a beautiful weekend there!

My new Garmin Colorado 400t GPS came in very handy. The trail was unclear near the start, and we found ourselves bush-whacking at one point. With the GPS and its topographical map, we were able to find our way back to the trail. It was also very nice to be able to chart our path and get time, distance, speed, and elevation data along the way. Definitely a nice tool to have on the trail!