The hippies came here to figure out how to fit into nature. Alleghany Gold mining in the Mother Lode will never die. Lynn Donaldson tapped in 20 years ago when he bought his first dredge. The bench jeweler raised his kids in the wild recesses of the Yuba River's south fork. If you're trying to make it rich, you'll just be frustrated.
People come up here, find a few specks, and they're hooked.
This spring, I'm going to start taking tourists out panning. I just bought a new dredge. Dredging is just something we do while we're out in the wilderness. At the smiling end of a camcorder lens, five high-school girls were dancing the other day through the near ghost town of Coloma , fountainhead of the Gold Rush. Stepping over the spot where Marshall stumbled upon the first trace of the metal in Sutter's Mill, the students making a class video were giddy and gold-struck.