Sierra Nevada

The Sierra Nevada is one the most famous, most scenic, and most forbidding mountain ranges in the world.

“Sierra Nevada” means “snow-covered mountains” in Spanish.

The Sierra Nevada Range is a solid block of rock -- 400 miles long and 40 to 80 miles wide -- forming the eastern boundary of the California Central Valley. Most of the mountain range is in California but extends slightly into Nevada near Lake Tahoe. Mount Whitney, the highest elevation in the lower 48 States at 14,494 feet, is in this range. The Sierra Nevada adjoins the Cascades Mountains just south of Lassen Peak, which is an active volcano, about 40 miles northeast of Red Bluff, toward the northern end of the Sacramento Valley.

Elevations in the Sierra Nevada are so high that they effectively block moisture from the Pacific Ocean reaching the land to the east. The towns on the western slope of the Range get about one inch of rain per month in the summer and five to eight inches a month in the winter. In contrast, those in the east, receive about a half-inch in the summer and, at most, one or two inches monthly in the winter. The result is that the western slope is heavily wooded, and the eastern slope is covered in scrub plants and grass.

On average, the weather of the mountain towns in California is mild in the summer and cold in the winter. The growing season ranges from 95 days at South Lake Tahoe to 226 days in Grass Valley.

The Gold Country

Wedged between California’s Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada is the Gold Country – home of the Gold Rush, the 49ers, and the landscape of imagination.

On January 24, 1848, James Marshall discovered gold at Coloma and the California Gold Rush began.  The Gold Rush is often considered the first “world event” as gold seekers from around the globe descended upon the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

The Gold Country extends through eleven counties, from Plumas County in the north to Madera County in the South.   Highway 49, frequently referred to as the “Golden Chain,” slices through the historic corridor, passing through dozens of hamlets, villages, and towns; hundreds of acres of open space, and thousands of years of history.  The road snakes along roughly 325 miles of mostly two-lane asphalt.  Originally designed to link Mother Lode county seats and mining camps, for most of its length it undulates through back country, winding its way around rocky knobs, down to river courses, and slaloming through pines, oak, and scrub.

Most towns hover around 1000 to 2000 feet in elevation and populations are seldom above a few thousand -- many towns support populations so small that the city limits signs do not even list a population.  Most communities have direct connections to the Gold Rush era and to the rich mining heritage of the region.  Mining relics and mid-19th-century structures are a frequent sight in the Gold Country.