First, a little history:
The Steamboat Ditch is a 33-mile irrigation canal completed in 1880. It was privately funded and built in three years by Chinese laborers. It is still active five months out of the year, and the "trail" that is so popular with Reno locals is actually the maintenance road for crews of the Steamboat Canal and Irrigation Company to keep the ditch clear and running. The entire canal is powered completely by gravity, following a barely discernible slope from its beginning off the Truckee River in Verdi, to its end at the Steamboat Creek in South Reno.
This is one of my favorite trails in Reno. There are many different sections to hike in different areas throughout the western parts of town. As the address point I have used one of the trail's most popular access points on Woodchuck Circle. There is some off-road dirt parking here, and the trail from this parking area to Hole in the Wall in Verdi is probably the most popular section of the entire trail. That said, there are many, many access points depending on where you want to hike: behind the Patagonia outlet, Caughlin Parkway, Horseman's Park on Skyline Blvd, Ridgeview Dr, etc.
The ditch winds serpentine through many of west Reno's residential areas, and walking it is sometimes a strange experience where you feel you are trespassing in somebody's backyard. In fact, there are a few points where you have to actually leave the trail and take surface streets to get around a few houses, but in my experience, there is always a quick route back to the trail, with one exception, which is where the ditch runs by the King of Reno's palace on Manzanita. There the trail is closed and gated off for one section. I'm not as familiar with the South Reno sections of trail, so I'm not sure what access is like down there.
Traveling the Steamboat Ditch is really more of a walk than a hike, as the trail is almost completely flat throughout. This makes it extremely popular with runners and mountain bikers, and you will not find a whole lot of solitude on the trail, though there is plenty of room for everyone. In the spring and early summer when the ditch is flowing, the route becomes even nicer with the sound of flowing water to accompany you.
My favorite section of the hike is from the trail underpass on West McCarran to Horseman's Park. There are some really gorgeous views of the city skyline from various points along this section of trail. read more