From a turnout in the road just above Salmon Falls Bridge, you can see where the new trail will end after it traipses along some of the most beautiful river canyons in Northern California.

The hills are tall and steep here – they rise 1,500 feet in three-quarters of a mile – and they're thick with stout vegetation. Through that brush, running up the blade of the nearest hill, yellow flags are tied to small trees and shrubs. They mark the future trail.

Jeff Horn of the Bureau of Land Management is the guy who put the flags there, and a week ago, he was standing along the road, matter-of-factly pointing them out and describing the terrain.

"That's where it gets real nasty," Horn said. "Cutting the trail through there is going to be a bear."

No kidding. The proof was on Horn's legs. Both were covered by webs of deep red scratches and scrapes. Horn, who's 51 going on 30 and sturdy in the way of a man whose life has been lived outdoors, spent six hours fighting those hillsides the day before, tying the flags through two miles of obstinate brush.

One of the joys/trials of the Sierra foothills here is the Northern California chaparral, a hearty mix of shrubs – it includes manzanita, chemise, toyon and ceanothus, if you're counting – that is tenacious and drought-resistant, and that thrives on wildfire damage. It makes for dense layers of green walls surging up and down the hillsides.

"I'd tie a flag, go five feet, and I couldn't see it," Horn said.

Never mind the roads that run through it, or the proximity of towns and cities, this is still rough and wild country. It's also gorgeous, historic country, and it rolls right down to the south fork of the American River, one of the nation's three most popular whitewater recreation spots, according to the BLM.

The 22-mile river stretch from Chile Bar near Placerville down to Salmon Falls Bridge at the top of Folsom Lake gets rafted by nearly 150,000 people a year, and once you get a ways out of Coloma – which is roughly the halfway point – there's no easy way off the river until Folsom Lake.

That will change by 2010 or 2011, depending on whose calendar you use, and that's good news for rafters – "It'll make hiking out a lot easier, and legal," Horn said – and great news for hikers.

In February, the nonprofit American River Conservancy bought the last riverfront parcel in the way of someone legally hiking from Sutter's Mill in Coloma to Sutter's Fort – about 50 miles – as the conservancy is advertising it. The BLM likes to say the trail connects the point where they found gold to the state Capitol.

(There are minor problems with both images. They both require some hiking through city streets or along Highway 49; plus, the BLM's trip lands you at the Capitol, which seems like a downer for the end of a hike.)

Either way, this new addition will connect up to the existing Cronan Ranch Park on the east and make for 20 miles or so of spectacular trails in a stunningly beautiful expanse of the foothills. Those will connect on the west to the trail networks around Folsom Lake, then to the bike and foot trails of the American River Parkway.

The new trail will be a bit more than five miles, and 2.6 miles of that will have to be cut through that chaparral (the rest will be formed on existing dirt roads). But those numbers only start to tell the story of the enormity of what's happening here.

The American River Conservancy, the private nonprofit that buys land at fair market prices – "willing buyer, willing seller" is how it describes the transactions – and puts it into public hands, has been working to get these pieces of low foothills for 20 years. It's raised and spent $23 million and bought about 3,600 acres for the cause.

Added to the land the BLM already owned, there will be nearly 5,600 acres to what they're calling the South Fork of the American River Trails System. (Don't look at the acronym too closely.)

What makes this all even richer, beside getting a major chunk of land in a beautiful spot into public hands, is that it's also a significant spot.

Call The Bee's Rick Kushman, (916) 321-1187. Listen to him Thursdays at 8:40 a.m. on NewsTalk 1530 (KFBK) and 8:50 a.m. on Armstrong & Getty, Talk 650 KSTE.