CALIFORNIA BOUND Sunday, October 24, 2021
Sierra Nevada - Northern Mines - Malakoff Diggins State Park/Empire Mine State Park
8:00 am – 5:00 pm Leader: Dave Lawler, MEM-6880
The Sierra Nevada - Northern Mines field trip offers partici- pants the perfect combination of Sierran Fall season weather conditions and a tour of two important gold mine sites that helped put California state on the world map 150 years ago. The Northern Sierra Nevada mining region is home to both “world-class” and lode gold deposits. Field Trip participants will have the opportunity to visit the largest historic placer mine in the region, notably the “Malakoff Hydraulic” or “North Bloomfield Hydraulic Mine”, now designated as a California State Park. Participants will visit the historic “ghost town” of North Bloomfield within the park, and several additional sites including the Malakoff Pit (where one cubic mile of gravels were processed for placer gold), Hiller Drain Tunnel, and abandoned mine features of the Hamilton Tunnel. The group will enjoy a lunch and lecture in the North Bloomfield townsite “picnic area.”
After lunch, the group will depart for the historic mining towns of Grass Valley and Nevada City. Nevada City was estab- lished in 1852 and nicknamed “The Queen of the Northern Mines” for its rich lode gold deposits and Victorian homes build by historic mine owners and superintendents.
The last field trip stop will be at the famous Empire Mine in Grass Valley, now designated as Empire Mine State Park. Participants will visit museum exhibits, the main production shaft area, retort gold processing facility, and Bourne Mansion. A brief lecture will be provided to summarize the significance of California’s most productive historic lode mine.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
Oroville Reservoir and the Damaged Spillway 8:00 am – 4:00 pm
Leaders: Steve Baker, MEM-2353 and Gabriella Parmentier, CA Department of Water Resources
When you have 40 million people living in a Mediterranean climate, water storage and conveyance are a necessity. Superimpose more frequent and extreme droughts and flood years with a snowpack that becomes less reliable because of the lowering winter snow levels, and you have challenges that create socioeconomic impacts that can change life as has been known. This field trip will teach you about the rich California water history that has required re-distribution of water stor- age and conveyance since the early 1900s. You also will visit Oroville Dam and the well-known spillway that began to dis- integrate during the 2017 extreme flood event. This national event sent a clear message to California’s Department of Water Resources that climate changes require new and improved infrastructure. You will see the Oroville water complex, Hyatt Power Plant, the Feather River Fish Hatchery, Thermalito Diversion Dam and fish barrier dam and the Oroville Dam flood control spillway, emergency spillway and intake structures. Lunch will be available at the Lake Oroville Visitor Center, where the California Dept. of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will explain how water is distributed throughout the state.
Oroville spillway. credit: Kelly M. Grow, CA Department of Water Resources.
Be sure to sign up for the field trips when you register for the annual meeting!
Northern Sierra Nevada Field Trip - Hydraulic Mining in North Bloomfield in 1890. (public domain)
www.aipg.org Apr.May.Jun 2021 • TPG 11
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