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Knights Ferry, CA is one of these small places you typically wouldn't go to if you don't have a reason. My reason was the Salmon Duathlon on November 3rd, 2001. I had an OK race, but was not really happy with the result. It was a much harder race than I had thought, because the area is hillier than I had expected, and there was a noticeable headwind on the bike leg too.
Knights Ferry is about 2.5 to 3 hours drive from San Jose, on route 120, about 20 miles east of a little town called Oakdale. You drive by Knights Ferry when going to Yosemity (assuming you come from the Bay area), but I bet many people don't know it's worth stopping there.
Knights Ferry is a left-over from the CA gold rush. There are the ruins of a mill and a generator station, a few buildings that look like right out of a wild-west movie, and then there is the covered bridge. The bridge is quite impressive. With a span of 360ft it is the longest covered wood bridge west of the Mississippi and one of only 10 remaining (authentic) covered bridges in California. I finally found out why wooden bridges are covered (I had always wondered about that): wood can last a long time when totally submersed in water. But when it alternatingly gets wet and dry, it actually deteriorates quite rapidly. Therefore, bridges are covered to make them last longer. This one is around for quite a while: over 130 years, which is quite a long time for California.
The river under the bridge is the Stanislaus river. It has very clear water and is a Salmon habitat. That's why our race is called the Salmon Duathlon: it's a fund raiser for the habitat. When you stand on the bridge and look down into the water you can watch the Salmon swim upstream. The water in the river is very cold, just as Salmon seem to like it. I went into the river to 'ice' my legs after the race and it was actually too cold to be in there for more than a very short time (but it sure felt good after the race).
Below are a few photos from Knights Ferry just to give you an impression of that place.
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The 'town' of historic Knights Ferry is very small, really. There are a few wild-west style buildings like these. Then there is at least one restaurant which seems to be popular for weddings (it must have to do with the bridge). And then there are a few houses where people live. I don't think Knights Ferry has more than a few hundred inhabitants, if that many. |
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A short walk away from these 'alive' remnants of the gold rush area, is the bridge and the remains of the mill. |
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Of course, like in any good wild-west setting, you need vultures circling overhead. All the time while I was racing I was wondering whether they were waiting for one of us bikers to kick the bucket... |
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This photos shows (obviously) the inside of the covered bridge. The race crossed the brige 3 times in the run. Since 1981 the bridge is closed to car traffic: the constant vibration and the weight of the cars caused a lot of damage to the bridge which is rated at only 5t. A new, concrete bridge was build a little bit downstream and the old wooden bridge now is only for pedestrians, which is very nice. |
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As you can see this is a rocky and hilly area. But a lot of California is not like that. It rather is grass land, and most of the year it is not very green. Only in Spring is there enough rain to make all California turn 'green'. The rest of the year, the place turns (what they call here) golden. (I call it dusty brown, but don't tell any Californian that I said that) Below are a few photos showing the general area around Knights Ferry. A lot of what I've seen of California so far looks like this most of the year: grassy hills. |
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But California has very fertile soil. Just irrigate the place and stuff will grow. To the right you see a pumpkin field that I saw a little bit west of Knights Ferry. In this area of CA you often ride through miles and miles of fruit trees and farms. I picked this photo because my trip was right after Halloween -- what could be more fitting than a pumpkin field for that :) It's sort of unrelated to Knights Ferry, but there is something else you can 'harvest' in some places in California: wind energy! On the way from the Bay area there is a series of hills which get lot of consistent wind. It's an ideal place to put wind generators. As you drive on the highway there (highway 680) you pass thousands of wind generators. I once did a rough estimate of their number and my result was over 1500 wind generators just for the few hills directly adjacent to the highway. There might be more. And those are not little wimpy wind mills as might seem at first. The photo on the right shows that these are full grown generators, each an estimated 50-60 feet tall... And there are LOTs of them, see below. |
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last updated: 11/4/2001
