It was back in '07, I believe, when we were driving up a fairly narrow Northern California road in the Sierra Nevada mountains when Claudette said to me, "We're here!" And where exactly were we? The road is following the Yuba River near Downieville, founded during the gold rush of 1849. Near here were mining camps with such names as Brandy City, Whiskey Diggins, Poverty Hill, and Poker Flats. Downieville also is known in infamy as the only city in California to ever hang a woman. It seems a Mexican woman killed a white miner.
We pulled the Toyota over to the side of the road, parking it in the shade of some tall conifers. We put on our water shoes, grabbed the gold pan, and headed for the river. The Yuba was less than ten yards away. Claudette tells me that her family spent every summer in this area when she was younger. They would camp on the river and swim, fish, and pan for gold. I was excited about the gold panning part, since as a small boy reading adventure novels I had dreamed of finding gold. But then what small boy didn't have those dreams. We reached the riverbank and found that there was about twenty feet of river rocks between us and the water. Some were small and rounded, but others were as big as basketballs. Water shoes have very little support and a flexible sole. Walking was difficult. The clear water was quite cold, fed by the melting snow in the high Sierras, but we were soon used to it. Claudette explained to me that, "We need to get the fine gravel from the river bed and anywhere silt may be caught between the rocks". I used a camping shovel I had bought at the flea market. The old German Sergeant had called them "trenching tools" in the remake of "All Quiet On The Western Front". I dumped a shovel of fine gravel into Claudette's pan into which she added water. "You need to wash the gravel in a circular motion." she said. "You wash the light weight silt away and usually leave the black sand in the bottom of the pan. The heavy material sinks to the bottom of the pan, and gold is the heaviest of all."
If this sounds like a tedious process, it is. At first it's easy, and then the monotony kicks in. Also, your feet start to get numb from the cold mountain water, and the constant bending over causes your back to ache. Your seat on the rocks is cold with the hardness of granite. This is back-breaking labor. Claudette said she never had the tenacity to pan all day, but her brother did. The miners in 1849 left their homes to do this day after day with the hope that they would strike it rich. I decided placer mining was not for me, but it did fulfill a boyhood dream of panning for gold in the California hills. Claudette did find a small fleck of gold that day, and as we left I noticed a man upstream from us with a small portable dredge. Yes," thar's gold in them thar hills."
We then drove to the Indian Valley Trading Outpost where Claudette had gone for soft serve ice cream when her family camped in the area. There was no one there from the days of her youth, but we had a nice time talking with the local folks. The ceiling of the bar has paper currency from many countries stapled to the ceiling with the contributor's name and date on it. Claudette looked for a bill her brother may have left with no avail. We ate our ice cream and were on our way to Downieville.
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We had a great day in the Sierra Nevadas. We had panned for gold and had ice cream.
