The campground was full of prospectors with all types of equipment. This area is open to the public and is heavily worked every year. Having satisfied that first urge and not finding anything, we continued down river to Downeville. Downeville is a historic mining town with a museum that is fascinating to browse through. Lots of pictures of the area from before the turn of the century.
Few people realize that the forty niners had stripped the hillsides of any trees.
The pictures also show the maze of flumes that lined the hillsides. They also have a working model of a stamp mill that was used by the hard rock mines to crush their ore and liberate the gold. You can also see a full size working stamp mill at the Kentucky Mine in Sierra City. I highly recommend you stop here and take the tour of the mine and museum. On our way back to camp, I marveled at how high the water had been last January.