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Print Friendly MapThe Bear Creek Trail is an 8 mile-long paved trail in Stockton, California. The trail has connections to neighborhoods as well as parks and schools.
The trail begins on Lower Sarcamento Road adjoining Bear Creek and starts heading west. About a block past its David Road crossing, the trail makes a sharp turn along the east edge of Bear Creek as it curves up towards Davis Road. There the pathway continues onto the opposite side and heads south parallel to the creek, pasing John Muir Elementary School and Baxter Park. If you don’t want to ride all the way up to Davis Street, you can cross over Bear Creek at Whistler Way and also a bit further north on Rivermont Drive.
After this little detour the trail maintains an east-west orientation along White Slough. It heads west, crossing Thornton Road, passing Garrigan Park and ducking under I-5/ West Side Freeway. The trail passes one more park, Faklis Park then continues west past the end of the residential neighborhood to its final destination near the Paradise Point Marina.
There are unpaved sections continuing east past Lower Sacramento Road but its not clear how safe or well-maintained those sections are.
You can find parking at Faklis Park, 5250 Cosumnes Drive in Stockton. You can also find a drinking water. a gazebo and courts for various sports.
Excellent place to start this route is at Michael Faklis Park, which is a well kept and attractive public park with bathroom facilities and plenty of parking. From the park, I headed west on a wide and very well maintained paved bike path, arriving within a few miles at Paradise Marina. If you're up for an extra couple of miles, when the path ends at the marina, continue on the road that runs past the marina: auto traffic is very light, it's along water, with smooth pavement. It eventually dead ends after a couple of miles. Heading back east, you'll retrace your ride to Faklis Park, but continue onward along the path with houses on one side, waterfront on the other. The path does cross a couple of busy streets, with a stoplight at one, and one of those flashing light crosswalks (cars don't HAVE to stop, but usually do when the lights are flashing.
On the day that I rode, there were no homeless encampments, but it was clear that a recent cleanup had been done, with rows of cleaned up shopping carts neatly stacked, and minimal trash along the trail.
This path is flat, family safe (caution at the street crossings, of course). While it is along a body of water and does have some natural beauty, you won't be awed by nature. It's simply a safe, good ride along a very well maintained path, away from auto traffic, and IMHO, definitely worth a visit if you're staying in or passing through Stockton. My sole reason for rating it four stars instead of five is that I'm stingy with five star ratings, which I reserve for paths with all of the above qualities but also boast exceptional natural beauty.
Great trail with nice views of the delta water ways , nice having this in my back yard , hopefully in the future they can extend it a little further out in the delta.
I’m making this my favorite local bike path. It’s quiet, clean for the most part, and it’s long enough to get a good ride in.
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