Part the reeds edging a dirt trail a few miles below Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River near Fresno, and you'll catch sight of a rock-rimmed swimming hole. Upstream the waterway descends gently in a series of small waterfalls, dodging huge boulders; downstream it disappears behind a thicket of willows. At the river's edge, a school of small, dark fish darts away as a shadow crosses the water.

    Twenty years ago few people could have imagined that the San Joaquin River, a waterway that has been called one of California's most damaged, would ever again support wildlife and recreation. But this 22-mile stretch--the San Joaquin River Parkway--is proving the skeptics wrong. For the last 13 years, a Fresno-based environmental group called the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust has been working to restore and preserve it. Along the parkway, which runs from Friant Dam to State 99, more than 3,000 riverside acres have been preserved. The trust hopes to double that number in the next decade or so. Four parks--the most recent, Wildwood Native Park, opened last summer--now line this corridor, providing a greenway on the river that's the lifeblood of the Central Valley.

    The trust operates on the theory that the more people know about the river and its resources, the more enthusiastic they'll be about saving it. "We want to establish a connection between people and the river," explains Steve Spratt, community outreach director for the trust. Activities sponsored by the trust, such as cleanup days, native plant restoration projects, and guided hikes and canoe trips, help people rediscover the beauty of a river that has been so altered by man that few people can remember what it once looked like, let alone imagine what it could once again become.