This wonderful community will someday be accessible from the Parkway bike trail if the work of the American River Conservancy to construct a bike trail from Coloma to Folsom Lake is successful.
An excerpt.
Magic on the river
Coloma residents say life's tough, but good as gold, in their historic town
In the Coloma Valley, you could call it Labor of Love Day.
This nearly mythic place, with its historic towns and glittering river, was the cradle of the Gold Rush. Today, people fall in love with it and want to live in the valley. But it can take a pioneering spirit -- and a lot of elbow grease -- to make a living here.
Teal Triolo, a transplant from San Francisco, opens her Sierra Rizing Bakery Coffeehouse at 5:30 a.m., seven days a week. A half hour later and a spell down the road, Candie Bliss, who left a corporate career, starts cooking breakfast for guests at her inn, built in 1852 with timber from Sutter's Mill.
Rancher John Tillman, holder of the local trash-hauling contract, also mans the counter in his olive-oil tasting room. John Metropulos, a former river raft guide, works in the kitchen of his gourmet cafe, dressing a giant salmon for the dinner special. Another old river hand, Nate Rangel, runs his own rafting business from a century-old general store.
But Judy Huestis might be most nimble of them all. At the moment, she's a dog-sitting, housekeeping, e-tail merchandising, substitute-teaching Realtor.
"Yes, it's a scramble," Huestis, 35, said with a grin. "I have all these different clipboards to manage it all. Living here is worth it. It's pretty special. In Coloma, if you know one person you know them all. I know it's a cliché, but people around here would give you the shirt off their back."
Though less than an hour from Sacramento and 30 minutes from Folsom, the Coloma Valley feels like another world. Its two neighboring towns, Coloma and Lotus, nestle together on a stretch of Highway 49 between Placerville and Auburn.
Only a few hundred people live here, but tens of thousands of visitors float past and drive through every year. Many come for the world-class rafting on the south fork of the American River, while others arrive to soak up history at Marshall Gold Discovery State Park.
