Natural Bridges Trailhead

The Natural Bridges trail drops roughly 400 feet from the parking area on Parrotts Ferry Road down to Coyote Creek, where the water disappears into a pair of limestone tunnels big enough to float through. It is a two-mile round trip on a wide, well-graded path maintained by the US Bureau of Reclamation, and the climb back out is the only real work of the day.

The trail is open year-round, but the caverns themselves are a summer destination. Spring runoff pushes too much water through the tunnels to enter safely, and the creek runs cold well into June. From July through early October the flow drops to a slow drift and the pools at either mouth warm up enough to swim.

The upstream entrance opens into a high chamber where the ceiling is streaked with mineral color and the sound of the creek echoes off wet marble. Floating the length of the tunnel takes only a few minutes, but most people spend an hour working their way through, stopping on gravel bars along the way.

Bring a headlamp, water shoes and an inflatable tube or pack raft — the streambed is slick and there are stretches where you cannot see the bottom. Nothing about the passage is technical, but it is genuinely dark in the middle, and phone flashlights do not survive being dropped in a creek.

From Arnold, follow Highway 4 down through Murphys and turn onto Parrotts Ferry Road toward Columbia. The trailhead is a signed gravel lot on the right, a few minutes past the Stanislaus River bridge. Allow about an hour of driving each way.

The lot is small and fills by mid-morning on summer weekends. There is no water, no shade and no cell service at the trailhead, so fill bottles in Murphys on the way down. Pack everything out — the creek corridor takes a beating in July and August.