The American River Parkway is a refuge and a dream, a swath of wilderness that cuts through a major metropolitan area. It offers something slower and simpler -- and many say better -- than the hustle and chaos just beyond its meadows and forests and riverbanks.

In fact, there are several places along the river where it is easy to imagine you are hundreds of miles from civilization, with egrets wading next to tall grass on the shoreline, wild turkeys poking and pecking for food, deer grazing, coyotes trotting through the brush and turkey vultures soaring high overhead. It is a peaceful place and a violent one just beneath the surface -- many of the wild animals are either hunting or being hunted, playing a game of survival next to parents pushing baby strollers, cyclists and runners sweating through workouts and young and old walking along simply to marvel at the sights.

The river and the trail attract all kinds. Like Clayton and Jenna Handy -- and their kitten, Cheetah -- who drove through the night from Idaho to Jenna's hometown in Folsom.

She wanted her husband of six months to see the sun rise on the water at Folsom Lake State Recreation Area, the trail's eastern terminus.

"It's heavenly. It's inspirational," said Jenna, 21, who, like her husband, attends Brigham Young University-Idaho.

And that's why The Bee came, to explore this recreational jewel from first light on the lake to the setting sun at Discovery Park 32.8 miles away, where the American River empties into the Sacramento.

Daybreak at Folsom Lake

As the Handys found tranquility with the sunrise, Gus Cox and his friend Mary Trout were picking through the Dumpsters nearby. They like the calm of early morning, too, but they are multitasking.

"We come here for the exercise, the animals and the beach, but the cans pay for our gas," says Cox, 66.

"I like the peace and quiet," adds Trout. "There's not a bunch of people out here."

Indeed, Folsom Lake at sunrise is an undiscovered gem. The only other person enjoying the setting before 6 a.m. was a woman walking briskly with her Labrador retriever.

Downstream at Lake Natoma, it was still too early for kayakers and rowers. A mother duck led her ducklings into the water, safe for the moment from predators. The bike trail runs right next to the lake. It is a good spot for a rest, looking out at the water, the emptiness of it all as the sun begins to show its first signs of warmth and a bicycle commuter races past, apparently headed downtown.

A gray-haired woman rides by going the other way. About the same time, 31-year-old Shannon Smart was stirring awake at his home on the Garden Highway miles away, preparing to go to work as a landscaper and thinking of the fun he would have later at Discovery Park with his personal watercraft.

'Total stress reduction'

The noise of the metro area comes full bore at Hazel Avenue, where a wave of morning commuters -- trapped in cars and trucks - heads toward Highway 50.

Just below the motorists, 63-year-old Jim Kirstein meets friend Bob Munn, 44, at the Nimbus Hatchery parking lot for their regular Tuesday/Thursday bike commute 25 miles downtown. Kirstein works in the telecommunications division of the state Department of General Services. Munn is in commercial lending at Bank of America.

In the afternoon, they will be joined by a few other cyclists for a more spirited ride back up the trail. But on this morning, they speed past a small footpath they probably never noticed along a stretch of the river between the Hazel and Sunrise bridges. There, Shayne Sutton, a retired state worker nine years younger than Kirstein, is at his kind of office, alone with the ducks, beavers and a 7-pound striped bass Sutton landed moments earlier. He is wearing a green hooded shirt and loose-fitting brown shorts.

"This is just a great place to come and not think about anything," Sutton says with a smile. "It's total stress re-duction."

Behind his portable nylon chair is coyote scat. Sutton figures the coyote must have devoured a mother duck and most of her offspring, which he saw just the day before.

The Bee's Blair Anthony Robertson can be reached at (916) 321-1099 or brobertson@sacbee.com.