California - Gold Country

Malakoff Diggins State Park

A Karen Brown Recommendation

As a conclusion to your Gold Country explorations, take a 45-mile round trip to Malakoff Diggins where high-powered jets of water were blasted at a mountainside to extract gold. The method was very successful, but it clogged waterways for miles and left a lunar-like landscape where there had once been a forested mountainside. This is a very pleasant summer-evening trip, but rather than run the risk of returning down narrow country roads in the dark, make the loop as you leave Nevada City for Lake Tahoe. The route is quite well signposted, but it gives you reassurance to have in hand the map from Nevada City Chamber of Commerce. (530-265-2692, www.nevadacitychamber.com) North Bloomfield, a town of white-painted houses and buildings set behind picket fences under forest shade is located in the park near the diggins. (Several buildings have been restored as museums and the ranger station is a useful informational stop.) The road through town leads to the diggins proper, a vast landscape of awesome scars. If the weather is inclement, turn back at this point and return to Nevada City by way of the paved highway. Otherwise, continue along the well-maintained dirt road (forking left and downhill at junctions), which leads you down through some lovely scenery to a narrow wood-and-metal bridge spanning a rocky canyon of the South Yuba River where you pick up the paved road that brings you back to Hwy 49 on the outskirts of Nevada City.

Located along this Karen Brown Itinerary:

Yosemite, Gold Country & Tahoe

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