I tend to walk along Van Ness in Old Fig. I like staying in the dirt as much as possible. It gives me a sense that I am on an actual trail in the Sierra (probably weird like that). I think someone else feels that same way, as there is a trail marker on the spot that feels most like a real trail along all of Van Ness:
This is on the 3500 block of Van Ness (yes, Christmas Tree Lane).
See you out on the trails!
This is a series I am doing here on The Fresnan; I hike somewhere around Fresno, and then I post about it. Is that cool? Yeah? Good good. I am trying to do more personal posts here, but still have a tie to life in Fresno. This is that kind of content.
I went up to Mount Stevenson above Shaver Lake. Wanted to have a quick drive up four-lane and do a quick morning hike. This fit. I have lived in Fresno a lot of my life, and I have never heard of this mountain or who the crap is Stevenson. I am sure he was a cool dude.
Really, I just wanted to hike somewhere and then go get lunch at the Hungry Hut.
I enjoyed it. It bums you out, though, you see what the fire has done to it and know how much nicer it used to be. There are still trees left, but you can tell there were way more so it bums you out.
The trail is also a service road for Cal Edison and the radio towers up there. That I didn’t like either as I prefer a traditional hiking only dirt trail, but it was okay otherwise.
If you go in the Summer, go early as it gets hot. There is little shade.
The top of the ridge is the best part as to the East you can look out at Shaver Lake and the Eastern Sierra. On the West side of the ridge, you look out over the San Joaquin Valley all the way to the Coastal Range (if the air is clear enough).
A nice hike for a morning run up the hill. I may do it again in the Spring when there are more flowers; I probably won’t bother with it otherwise.
Before you go, bring plenty of water, some sunscreen, and maybe bug spray (but I didn’t encounter many).
Video of my hike:
I have always said that Fresno is a great basecamp for visiting the Sierras, most notably our three nearby National Parks: Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia. But I had never really known of someone that actually did it – someone not from here anyway.
A dude named Nick Pisano is spending a year traveling (sounds like a sweet gig if you can get it) with his partner and recently spent a couple weeks using Fresno as a basecamp.
This long blog post by Nick documents his use of Fresno as a base for visiting our nearby parks and … Bakersfield ?♀️ -that is actually a cool part to me, but anyway.
https://twitter.com/npisano/status/1532132868310282240?s=21
It is a overall good blog post illustrating how a tourist can use Fresno as a basecamp, I want to make that clear.
Buuuuut.
He gave us several shots throughout the post. He tried to be nice about it, but definitely didn’t pass up on chance to deal in digs:
“Not a lot going on here”
“I’ve gone out in search of Fresno, as it were, multiple times here and come up relatively empty each time.”
“relatively sleepy”
“The key to enjoying this city is lowering your expectations”
“a kinda bad city next to some very good things”
“I say this with the utmost respect, but there’s just not a terrible lot going on here. In some ways, it’s the least-happening place we’ve been.”
Woah. Pretty rough.
I will give him credit for going to a Fresno Grizzlies game, the Tower District, and bonus points for visiting the Underground Gardens. He seemed to enjoy those, as he should.
He certainly didn’t do all the things though.
In fact, one major mistake: He did not seem to have much (if any) Mexican food – most notably no mention of tacos:
Next time I’ll show you the stuff the tourist guides won’t
— Mike Oz (@mikeoz) June 2, 2022
Yep, you KNOW Mike Oz is taking that dude on the taco tour of his life next time.
Speaking of food, going out to eat is a feature for Fresnans. Part of our culture is eating out. When someone visits us, we plan on eating places. It is a “thing to do”.
You can make fun of that if you like but I think it’s cool. It’s a Fresno feature that is underrated.
Also, this guy seemed to not be familiar with the concept of a small city. A working class city. A city for living a life.
Not every town is built to give a shit about tourists. Fresno is one of them.
We don’t have a beach. We don’t have Disneyland. There are no longer any cable cars. A Hollywood sign doesn’t loom over the town. We don’t have a Vegas Strip. We have no plan for someone hanging out for two weeks.
What our “sleepy town” has is people working their ass off and living a life.
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