Adventure 008, Hike 105 - Great James Trail of Fresno

Capture California, the Game-2012

Adventure: 008, Hike 106 – Great James Trail of Fresno

Team: Thing One, Thing Two

Date:  September 10, 2012

Location: Fresno

Hike Info:

Trail: Great James Trail of Fresno

Distance: 2.8 miles

Duration: 0:48

Elevation Rise: 8'

 Description:

This trail is called the Great James Trail of Fresno. But this name is not universal. Actually Thing One found this trail while searching the web for another trail and stumbled upon James Sinclair's blog about this previously existing trail with no name. So Sinclair named the trail after himself—The Great James Trail of Fresno. This trail is in northern Fresno, so we drove the five miles to it above Herndon and east of First.



This trail is a nice little wiggly neighborhood trail, under power lines, As we walked along it we saw other pedestrians, dog walkers, bicyclists and a skateboarder. Our guess is that in the evenings this would be a really popular trail to stroll along. But there is very little in the way of mature trees or shrubbery to shade the pass-byers. It even has some pretty wide green areas as it abuts an elementary school and a middle school.



We do have a couple nits about this trail. The first is that when it makes its left turn, it comes to First Street, which is a pretty busy street. What do we find? No pedestrian crossing! You need to go about a 100 yards either direction to get to a stop light. This just invites jaywalkers. Oh well, it just adds onto the mileage. But once you have gotten across First, you go the length of a strip mall and you come to gate leading into an apartment complex. At this point Thing One and Thing Two decided to turn around come back to our car. Later on in examining James Sinclair's map, it looks like you walk through the complex to the continuation of the trail.



On the whole, it is a nice quiet walk, but probably not worth leaving our neighborhood to go to it.