Touring *

From State Highway 99, take the V Street off-ramp and turn northeast onto V Street. Cross the railroad tracks and turn left onto 16th Street, which soon veers right to become the Snelling Highway, or State Highway 59. Go up half a mile and turn right onto West Olive Avenue. Turn right again at the Walmart and park as far south as you can. Two short asphalt strips connect the parking lot to the trail, which is between you and the raised railroad tracks.

While nowhere as new or as manicured as nearby Black Rascal Creek Trail to the north, the Bear Creek Trail has been serving Merced residents well since 1976. It does show some cracks and signs of wear, but not as much as you'd expect from two decades of fond use, and if you try, you'll find you can skate right across a grassy two-inch crack with no problem. Start skating to the east, parallel to the railroad tracks. (You can also hook up with the Black Rascal Creek and Fahrens Creek Trails from here by skating west and crossing West Olive Avenue on the trail that leads to Fahrens Creek Park just half a mile to the north. See the previous two listings for more details.) The Southern Pacific Railroad isn't exactly lovely company, and a large dirt lot spreads to your left as you begin, but you'll be right next to the creek as soon as you cross narrow Mistwood Drive and the bridge just beyond. A very tall wood fence at first makes skating a bit crowded next to the wide bed of Bear Creek, and equally tall trees block part of the view from the banks. Half a mile down this odd corridor, though, you finally reach Applegate Zoo and Park, complete with the Kiwanis Kiddies Carnival. Now the asphalt becomes as wide as a street (in fact, for about 100 feet it is a street that runs one-way, so stay alert). For a short stretch you follow the tracks of the tiny kiddie railway, which soon curves back into the park. Picnic tables, drinking fountains, and rest rooms are available, as well as the much-needed shade trees that make Central Valley life tolerable in the summer heat. Five blocks past Mercy Hospital, you must negotiate the steep, curved underpass of G Street, marked by raised yellow traffic dots, no less. Stay on your own side; there's a blind corner here, and you wouldn't want to collide with a cyclist and have to go back to the hospital. After the underpass, the trail scenery becomes consistent, with relatively undeveloped creek to your left and attractive neighborhoods on the right. The trail comes to a sudden end at McKee Road, but a wide bike lane beckons on the bridge where McKee crosses Bear Creek. Go ahead and cross to the north side; the trail continues along a slightly hilly route all the way back to G Street. Cross on the sidewalk of another bridge back to the trail on the south side of the water. Take a hairpin left after you cross, to get to the access trail that swoops back down the G Street underpass. Warning: if it's a terribly windy day, you'll find the last stretch of skating, between the railroad and the dusty field before Walmart, to be quite brutal, with a head wind that cuts your stroke strength in half and sends pebbles in a stinging spray against your face.