CALIFORNIA GOLD COUNTRY EXPLORER: ALL-SEASON TRAVEL TO LEGENDARY SIERRA NEVADA GOLD RUSH MINING TOWNS, TRAILS AND PARKS CALIFORNIA STATE HIGHWAY 49’S ... NATIONAL PARK (Tour & Travel Explorer)

Step back into history to the vibrant era of the 1849 Gold Rush! A single Eureka! event changed history forever in early January of 1848. Sutter's Mill on the American River would become California's first gold discovery site. Make a journey along circuitous Gold Country backroads and visit museum-quality mining towns on a tour from 'California's Golden Triangle' via Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, and Yosemite National Park, in a region covering one-fifth of the Golden State's most scenic geography. Whether exploring the first gold strike on the American River South Fork or visiting State Highway 49's Golden Chain of mining towns, explore the 300-mile adventure to legendary gold mines, surrounding lakes, rivers, and streams. It's a path of history bringing the miners to the goldfields and their magnetic, frantic lust for gold in a quest for the precious mineral generating the single largest mass migration ever recorded. The Gold Country offers legendary lodging, handcrafted goods, delicious farm to fork foods, craft beer, wine, and spirits, with an unlimited choice of vacation and recreational opportunities.With a 50-year career living in the Sierra Nevada foothills and dozens of twists and turns later over the rigorous curves of California State Highway 49's steep river canyons, the first impressions of Sutter's Mill encouraged a new book, California Gold Country Explorer. Once covered with tent camps, ghost towns, and gold mines spread over one-fifth of the entire Golden State, the Golden Chain includes recreational areas, starting from Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, and Yosemite. The pocketbook highlights travel to 14 Gold Country Destination Tours taking an insider's view at foothill and mountain destinations. Readers become acquainted with the details from several notable personalities quoted while living in California. Whether exploring James W. Marshall's first gold strike on the American River South Fork or visiting antique mining towns, lasting memories remain of Mark Twain's wit, Lola Montez's Spider Dance, and the countless efforts of 49er argonauts on the path of history into the legendary centers of wealth. California's Sierra Foothills uncover the ineffable charm and treasure pursued by visitors to today's legendary Sierra landscapes and its historical lodging, handcrafted goods, delicious farm to fork foods, local craft beer, wine, and spirits. One enters a unique portal of Sierra Nevada Foothill towns complemented by 49er hospitality and a sense of deep commitment.Gold seekers traveled from distant corners of the globe and made journeys overland by horse, mule, oxen, and on foot following the frenzied rush for gold. Constant gold strikes reported nuggets there ... for the taking. Hitting Gold Rush paydirt, the Gold Country Explorer diverts to stories of hunting for antiques, as well as the art of gold panning along the river's edge. In quest of neighboring ghost towns, landmark communities, and original gold mining camps led to assembling guidebooks. Trekking the old prospectors' trails from a hundred and fifty years ag, earnestly making photographs, gathering an array of vintage and contemporary literature added refinements. Citing the prose and humor of contemporaries from the Gilded Age adds to understanding the Sierra settlements at the time. The 'Henness Pass' beginning in Marysville used the old covered wooden bridge crossing the Yuba River South Fork at Bridgeport returning to Sierra County on a path traveled by horse and wagon, the fastest way to the gold and silver mines of California and Nevada. The Golden State's history reminds us how we stand miles above the hidden treasures of those precious minerals, just beneath our feet.