Placer County is known for its rustic character and rural beauty, especially in its southwestern basin.
An informal bowl of land bound by ridges in Newcastle, Loomis, Penryn, Rocklin, Roseville and Granite Bay, the basin is a web of slim lanes, undulating roads and serpentine side streets. Passing through territory once dominated by granite quarries, cattle ranches and fruit farms, the byways lead down a path of local history.
The first trails through this territory were little more than trampled animal tracks, wending from natural shelters to berry patches, grassy meadows and water sources. Once the rush for gold started in the mid-1800s, the traces became packed dirt paths wending between mining camps and supply outposts.
The east side of the basin is where most of the early pioneers traveled as they made their way up into the foothills from Sutter’s Fort or steamship docks in Sacramento. Auburn Folsom Road follows along — then parallels — some of the oldest trails, with lanes branching off to private driveways, horse ranches and country homes on acreage where small herds of cattle, llamas and goats sometime graze.
Between Interstate 80 and Auburn Folsom Road, there are many intersecting lanes named for early landowners and civic leaders such as Dick Cook, Wells, Tudsbury, Laird and Cavitt Stallman roads. Others — like Sugarloaf Mountain, El Monte and Lone Pine — note local landmarks. Others describe natural formations.
Across the basin, Taylor Road rolls down from Newcastle to Roseville’s boundaries, with a name change to Pacific Street as it cuts through Rocklin. Accessing small commercial hubs and slicing through Loomis’ downtown district, Taylor Road ties the city into country loops.
Leading off Taylor Road to the north in Penryn is English Colony Way, a pastoral conduit to Lincoln that also provides back road access to Loomis via Swetzer and Humphrey roads. It also touches Sisley Road, another slim stretch of pavement that curves around to meet Callison Road in Newcastle.
Butler Road wends around old fruit ranches and modern manors, passing Clark Tunnel Road, which ties to Highway 193 on the far side of the basin. Mounds of granite outcrops decorate this area, with mottled stone humps and craggy rock flukes rising from the earth like breaching whales.
Auburn Folsom and Taylor roads connect via a mesh of cross streets, such as Rock Springs Road, which loops over from Penryn to south Newcastle. King and Horseshoe Bar roads also unite the two sides of the basin, with each anchoring near the boundaries of the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area.
There was a time when the low hills and golden meadows of Placer County’s southwestern territory held quarries, berry patches and fruit and nut orchards. Today, the Mount St. Joseph Seminary, schools, mandarin groves, passive parks, the Indian Creek Golf Course, and Secret Ravine Vineyard and Winery punctuate the rural countryside.
Although in-fill building is most common along the basin roads, there are new formal neighborhoods developing, such as the 322-acre Sierra De Montsterrat subdivision on Barton Road. Sporting roadside vineyards, the tract is adding another cluster of upscale country villas to the basin’s landscape.
With recent rains encouraging bouquets of wildflowers to spring up along the roadsides, Placer’s basin back roads are lacing together the foothills in a colorful fashion.