CALIFORNIA Association OF PARK AND Recreation
Commissioners AND BOARD MEMBERS
Gold Country Tour
Touring California’s Gold – Mineral and Natural
By Bill Thomas, October, 2011
From October 6 through 10, a small band of park explorers experienced a special trip beginning in Sacramento and including John Sutter’s Saw Mill where gold was first discovered; historic Jackson; Columbia State Historic Park; Murphy’s Angel’s Camp; Yosemite National Park; Mariposa Grove; and Sequoia National Park. Sponsored by the California Association of Park & Recreation Commissioners and Board Members (CAPRCBM), this educational tour added to four previous successful ventures in various regions of the state, namely, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Channel Islands National Park, and a week long perusal of parks, historical structures, monuments, and natural habitats along California’s scenic Pacific Coast.
The first day of our “gold tour” included Empire Mine and grounds near Grass Valley, when we were introduced to various methods of gold detection, mining, stamping, and processing. An extensive museum, ancient tool shop, graveyard of massive crushing equipment, and the mine’s rugged interior all represented processes through which the earth unearthed its precious, and, primarily, tiny stones from the underground veins. This mine was well known as one of the state’s oldest, largest, deepest, longest, and richest gold mines. We also drove to Coloma, the scene of James Marshall’s drawing small yellow pebbles from a river, which led to the 1849 California Gold Rush. James, himself, in the guise of an interpretative volunteer, described the circumstances under with which he and John Sutter determined that, indeed, he had unearthed yellow particles and both attempted, unsuccessfully, to keep the significant discovery a secret. We panned some finite nuggets ourselves. Traveling to Jackson for the night, we saw a good deal of the “old west” as we made our way to the state’s largest collection of gold rush-era brick buildings in the crusty miner’s town centered in Columbia State Historic Park. By 1850, after gold was located in the area, Hildreth’s Diggings was renamed Columbia and two years later numbered 150 stores, shops, saloons, and even a few business enterprises of questionable nature. Its sizable population included Americans, Mexicans, Native Americans, Chinese, French, Irish, Italian, German, and Jewish miners and merchants, all adding to the cultural and ethnic diversity. By 1853 the population was between 25,000 and 30,000, and, by the early 1900’s, as much as $150 million in gold had been mined there. Today, local tours by costumed docents and staff introduce visitors to the dated replicas of hotels, restaurants, saloons, and shops of long ago. Twenty-two active concessioners still provide goods and services for the ancient town, including theatrical performances by Columbia College. Next on our itinerary were examples of nature’s contributions to our golden state, the colossal trees of Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Here, on a special tour guided by state park botanists, we viewed trees thought to be as old as 2,000 years, some reaching a height of 325 feet with a diameter of 33 feet. Giant sequoias dominated ponderosa and sugar pines, incense cedars, and white fur. Late in the afternoon, we viewed the largest gold nugget in the U.S., a 44-pound, crystallized stone displayed in a glassed vault at the Jewelry/Heritage Museum on the grounds of Ironstone Vineyards.
After moteling in Angels Camp, we headed for Yosemite National Park where we met long-time park ranger Tom Smith who would serve as our guide. From the expansive valley floor, he pointed out sculptured Half Dome, monolithic El Capitan. Majestic Glacier Point, Cathedral Spires, and Three Brothers surrounding us on high. We viewed the Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls, enriched by the heavy rains and snow of the year. We took a leisurely walk to view the biological diversity, sequoia groves, and streams, stopping in at the Park’s Museum, and the Ansel Adam’s Gallery where the famous artist’s works are prominently displayed and sold. At the conclusion of our tour, Ranger “Smitty” gave us copies of his many recorded experiences in the Park in a memoir entitled, I’m Just a Seasonal. We dropped by Mariposa Grove on our way to our night’s quarters in Mariposa
On the fourth and final day, we wound our way in “esses” up the winding, ever curving entry road to the entrance to Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks. We were also delayed by excessive road repair before arriving at Lodgepole Visitor Center where we were welcomed by our ranger host. We lunched at Waksachi Village before driving to the crowded parking lot leading to Crystal Cave. A fifteen minute walk down a path brought us to the entrance of the enormous caverns. Our volunteer guide took about 50 of us into this maze of curtains of icicle-like stalactites and mounds of stalagmites. As we listened to his descriptions of our surroundings in large, gathering spaces beneath the earth, we actually expected to see cave people coming out of their hidings to greet us. After an hour’s exploration, we made our way back along narrow-walled rock passageways only to encounter the steep, rigorous path we had so easily descended before. As night began to encounter day, we strolled through heavily treed sequoia groves and wondered at the base of the General Sherman Tree. This 2,300 to 2,700 year-old-tree, 275 feet high and 25 feet in diameter, is among the tallest, widest, and longest-lived of all the trees on the planet.
The next day, all traveling to our respective destinations, we felt collectively blessed by having enjoyed true treasures of our fair state – both golden and wooded.
