Plumas-Eureka State Park

Most California gold discoveries began with a flash in the pan; this one began with a hike. In 1851, a group of miners sent two scouts up Eureka Peak. What the men found wasn’t just a grand view of the Sierra, but a quartz outcropping glittering with gold, silver, and lead. “Gold Mountain,” they christened it. The Eureka Chimney, as the rich deposit became known, eventually yielded millions of dollars in precious ore.

Hard-rock mining soon became the business of the day. By the 1870s, the Sierra Buttes Mining Company, a highly efficient British firm, had turned the mountain into Swiss cheese. Seventy shafts were sunk into the peak, and more than seventy miles of tunnels spiderwebbed through its flanks. Above ground, the noise of stamp mills echoed across the valley, while below ground miners chipped away by candlelight in dangerous, dust-choked conditions.

The miners, however, knew how to enjoy themselves. Winters at Eureka Peak turned the worksite into one of California’s earliest ski resorts. The gear? Twelve-foot-long wooden planks, four inches wide, greased with “dope”-homebrew concoctions of pine pitch, castor oil, and tallow. Primitive as it sounds, racers reportedly topped 80 miles per hour. Some even hitched a ride on ore trams, bucket-style ski lifts that may have been the first of their kind in North America. Work hard, play hard, indeed.

Today Plumas-Eureka State Park interprets this colorful era with a museum, a blacksmith shop, a stamp mill, and the Moriarity House, once home to a miner’s family. The miners’ bunkhouse serves as the visitor center. Walking through Johnsville, the old company town tucked within the park, you can almost hear the clang of picks and the scrape of skis.

The hike to Eureka Peak gives you a literal overview of all this history. Beneath your boots lies a honeycomb of abandoned tunnels, but above you stretches a landscape of red fir, white pine, and High Sierra views. From the top you can gaze toward Mt. Lassen on the northwest horizon, the far-off Sutter Buttes to the southeast, and Beckwourth Peak rising nearby. False Peak (also called North Peak), a worthy destination on its own, delivers sweeping panoramas that can make even the steep climb feel worth the effort.

If Eureka Peak feels like too much of a trudge-or if the access road is closed-you can opt for Grass Lake Trail. A shorter, 2.5-mile round trip along Little Jamison Creek, it passes rock steps known as the “Stairway to Heaven” and a small waterfall before opening to a sparkling alpine lake. It’s a fine way to experience the gentler side of this history-heavy park.