Yesterday, there was a surprise on one of the pictures I took from the Fifth Street bridge over the new Highway 395 extension: a bike path. I went for a ride this morning to check it out but promised myself that I would not cross any lines if there were signs and/or barricades blocking the entrance but there weren’t any. The path itself was dried oil and dirt, and it looked like that it was being prepared for asphalt but I had no problems navigating it.

(By the way, I don’t know if it has a name yet but “Lompa Ranch” sounds better than “Prison City”, considering the new road is adjacent to two of Carson City’s medium security prisons.)

This is the east end of the path off of Butti near the sewer plant.

Down the path a little was a turnoff. The left fork is back to Butti and the right fork gets you to Fifth Street.

If you don’t want to take the path to the end, then you can head west over the Fifth Street bridge.

Continuing west on the path, you go under two bridges that carry the 395 traffic. My fear was that this would become a homeless shelter but the builders have installed large, sharp rocks under the bridge and it’s all open air. There would be very little protection from the element though it’s only a matter of time before it’s hit by the taggers.

A couple of views to the north.

After crossing under the bridge, the path turns south and does not go back to Fifth Street.

It travels alongside the southbound lane of the freeway and I was more than a little tempted to try out the new asphalt but figured I was pushing my luck enough as it was.

The path turned to the west…

And it came to an end.

The rest of the path looks ready to go and even has some cattle gates.

I turned around and thought about taking this construction road but I didn’t know where it ended and I didn’t want to take the road bike on gravel. Hopefully, they’ll turn this into another path when they’re done with construction.

Here’s the route of the bike path from overhead courtesy of MapMyRun and my GPS.

Have to appreciate the efforts of the bicycle advocates in the area for helping create these great rides. Looking for to many years of exercise on them.

Ride stats:
12.78 miles
56 minutes
673 calories