On our previous encounter with
the California Gold Country we went from Vinton to Downieville in our
Adventurer Cab over Camper, stopping at a few campgrounds along the way. In this next segment, we will take you along
for the ride from Nevada City to Downieville and head back home back through
Sierraville. A note here, if you are
traveling through Sierraville and it’s time for lunch or dinner, be sure to
stop at Los dos Hermanos – fabulous food and great service.
We started out on a late Friday
afternoon from our home base here in Northern Nevada. Our first stop for the night was Snowflower
Preserve a Thousand Trails ELS property that we are members of. The park this time of year is pretty
deserted… we only saw one other fellow camper.
He was quick to admire our truck and camper…. Which does not surprise me
– we have a really great looking rig!
This was our first outing with our new bicycles and the new front hitch
mount bike carrier. This unit was
purchased through Amazon and was pretty easy to install and the bikes ride rock
solid. We did not go too crazy on the
bikes as we wanted to be sure we would get good use out of them before we
dropped any serious money. After
leveling the rig, we detached the bikes and off we went for a short ride. We could not go far as Snowflower still had a
significant amount of snow in places.
But it was a nice little ride.
Snowflower at this time of year has only electricity for campers but
does have water shed for you to fill your tanks if you choose to. There is nice lodge for guests and has a
stone fireplace and satellite TV if you choose to watch a show or two. There is no store at this writing – winter
was harsh a few years back and finishing touches are being made to the store
for the summer opening. Management has
told me that it should open soon. At the
time of our visit they were operating on winter hours so staff was not on hand
to welcome us. They did leave a nice
note explain where to camp and where to fill our tank with water etc. – one of
the great things about this campground is its proximity to Lake Tahoe and
Reno. You can stay at the preserve and
take your time touring the area.
On Saturday morning we headed out
down Highway 20 towards Nevada City to Highway 49 northbound with a planned
stop at Malakoff Diggins State Park. A
word of caution regarding this park and many others in the California State
Park system… they may indicate they have camping but unless you go into
reservations you are not able to determine if they are open or not. While this park was of great interest to us,
after traveling quite a ways to get to the location we found the campground is
closed. The State of California could do
a much better job of letting the public know which campgrounds have been
closed. Nonetheless, Malakoff has
interesting history and you should try to see this treasure before the State of
California closes it for good.
Originally named Humbug by early
inhabitants, the name was changed to a more dignified Bloomfield and changed
yet again to North Bloomfield when it was discovered that there was a town with
the same name in California. A bit of a
history lesson for you folks – Malakoff Diggins is considered to be the largest
hydraulic mine site in California. One
of the remarkable things about the site is that this is where one of the very
first rulings on environmental impact was made.
Hydraulic mining treated many issues for the towns and cities downstream
and rich farmland was destroyed. Even
the great San Francisco bay was being affected by the hydraulic mining
operation at Mallikoff. The result was
that the farmers filed suit against the mining operators and in January of 1884
hydraulic mining was ruled illegal in the State of California. While there are few staff members at the
park, they welcome your questions – even if it’s just to tell you that the
campground is closed!
From this site we headed back to
highway 49 and found ourselves taking a slight detour to see the Bridgeport
Covered Bridge. This is the longest-span
wooden covered bridge in existence. The
bridge was nearly destroyed in the floods of 1997 – but was saved and
repaired. It is currently closed to
traffic and pedestrians with work being done to open the span in time for its
150th anniversary. This is a
nice stop to make and read all the historic information along the way. So after our slight detour, we drove back to
Highway 49 and our gold country adventure.
There are campgrounds located in the area that are National Forest
operations. We found them to be clean
and pretty well kempt. With our plans to camp at Mallikoff dashed, we
made our way to one of the nicest little spots I’ve camped. There were pit toilets and no other services,
but the campground was well maintained and we even were able to buy firewood
from the campground host for our evening campfire. After a good night sleep, we headed towards
home. As I mentioned at the beginning of
this article, we headed back home via Vinton and Highway 70 returning through
northern Reno. Another great trip, with
great memories added to our treasure chest.
Making California Gold Country just a little closer to completion. Our next adventure along Highway 49 will take
us so bound along Highway 49.
Til we see you again, stay safe
out there,
Laurie and JP
It's rock really. Malakoff Diggins SHP is rocking diggins SHP for tourist to get natural entertainment & can enjoy it
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