North Fork American River - Iowa Hill Bridge area

[flyminion]

For the seventh day of our trip, Cade and I went tubing on the North Fork American River near the Mineral Bar Campground at the Iowa Hill Bridge. The last three days of our trip are in the Grass Valley area, and we have no specific plans other than doing a whole lotta tubing. We tubed a couple of sections of the South Yuba River last year and are looking to tube more of it this year, but since we were leaving from Folsom this morning, the North Fork American River was more convenient. Since we only have one vehicle, we have to hike upstream and then tube back to the starting point. Yankee Jim’s Bridge seemed like an obvious first choice for North Fork American River tubing, but it’s closed until 2028 while they construct a new bridge. Two other access points in that general area are the Ponderosa and Iowa Hill Bridges, and the latter seemed to have more trails along the river, so we opted to go there. Maps indicated that the Pennyweight Trail followed the river upstream from the bridge for about a mile or so. I couldn’t tell from Google Earth if there were unofficial trails that continued further upstream. If we couldn’t get far enough upstream, there was a trail that went downstream for a half-mile or so, which would allow us to tube past the bridge and walk back if we wanted to float longer.

We left Folsom around 11am and reached the river shortly before noon. We had to pay a $10 day use fee. We parked on the south side of the river and then crossed the bridge back to the Pennyweight Trailhead on the north side.



We took the trail upstream, and it ended about where the map indicated. We worked our way upstream along the dark bedrock banks until we reached a large, deep swimming hole.



A middle-aged couple in the water with their dog pointed out a path that bypassed the pool from above.



We climbed up to it and continued upstream to the next bend, which had another deep pool.



We decided to inflate our tubes and put in here. I snorkeled the pool, and it was about 15 feet deep at its deepest point, but there were no good jumps.

We tubed downstream to the large swimming hole we passed on the way in.

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It had cliffs of about 10-15 feet on both sides, but the river looked about six feet deep or less on the river-left. The river-right was much deeper, probably at least 15 feet deep. I climbed up onto an idyllic jumping ledge about 15 feet high and jumped in. There were two thirty-something guys and an older man on a tube there who said he had been coming here for 70 years. He told us about how his dad often prospected for gold on this river. After this group moved downstream, we swam and I jumped some more, and then we floated downstream. This pool was annoying to get past because it had no current, and the wind was blowing upstream.

Our next significant swimming hole was a large gravel bar where I had briefly taken a dip on the hike in to beat the heat.



I snorkeled as we floated through it and found one jump about 8 feet high over water about the same depth. I had to jump out to clear some rocks below. The trio from the previous swimming hole had settled here and said they had been jumping from it all weekend. I jumped and managed to clear the rocks. There was another deep pool below the next riffle, but it didn’t have any significant vertical elements.



After this, we went down a couple of significant rapids through a constricted area with a boulder garden similar to those on the South Yuba, except these boulders were black, unlike the white granite ones on the Yuba. There were a few deep pockets here and there, but no good jumping rocks over deep water.



After the river straightened out, we entered the shade for the final float back to the bridge. I snorkeled almost all of this stretch because the water felt warmer than the air in the shade with the breeze blowing. There were a few areas about 5-6 feet deep, but the entire stretch was mostly shallow.



I passed under the bridge and took a short path on the north bank back up to the road. Cade had gotten out on the south side of the river before the bridge, and we met at the car. I went back down to the river with my thermometer to put my shoes back on. The water was 75.5 °F.

We headed back to Grass Valley, where we checked into the Grass Valley Courtyard Suites, and then we went to Sopa House of Thai in Nevada City, where I got a massive plate of Pad Thai that I was unable to finish. It was pretty good, though. We then went to Treats, where I got a scoop of Swiss orange chip ice cream, which I had passed up last year, and I had been living with that ghost ever since. It was pretty good; it tasted like one of those chocolate oranges you whack on the table and it breaks into a bunch of different wedges.

In summary, this stretch of the North Fork American River was fairly uneventful but tube-able at today’s flow. The highlight swimming hole was the one just downstream of the put-in, which was large, deep, and had a decent jump of about 15 feet. It looks like the river gets more eventful heading toward Yankee Jim’s, which is about 5 miles downstream, so hopefully we’ll finally get to check that out when the area reopens in 2028.