NORTH FORK FALLS

Sailor Point Road can take you through the center of this claim, but didn't do me much good. The brush is very thick through most of this claim and a lot of it is very steep. There is a lot of old river bed rock but I did not find a great place to work. I did not get down to the southeast corner that touches a very small section of the North fork of the Yuba, but that would likely have been more useable for panning and detecting. The roads are not bad, but narrow, slow down and be careful, there are those that don't have much common sense.

The best access I found was to continue on the road heading southeast past the campgrounds to a wide parking area for a trail head. Take the trail a short ways down to the southeast corner of the claim where the North Fork of the American River runs through. The trail runs along the river. Good places for sluicing and panning.

It is the north fork of the American river. North fork of the Yuba is much further north (Downieville

Spent the day digging, moving large boulders and crevicing. Found next to nothing.

I was sniping in a suit with googles and snorkel for about 6 hours, didn't find more than a couple pieces of flour. Panned ~15 pans from misc locations, but mainly picked out cracks and moved rocks.

Absolutely beautiful location. 2 stage waterfall, both pools are quite deep. I'd imagine those superdeep pools are holding anything worth picking up, but it's too deep for freediving with a light to do anything more that see whats possible.

Access is super easy, it's less than a half mile to walk to the falls through the campground trail in the immediate vicinity. From there, moving up and down the river immediately around the claim area is much more simple.

Rock was a natural bedrock sluice after the falls, and had great cracks to work, but after working deep into what would have been a magical hole, I pulled out 10ish lead shot, fishing weights, etc, and not even a spec of gold. That was when I gave up. I found a pair of binoculars, and a pair of sunglasses down there in various points...

I'd go back only if I had a breathing assist to deep dive those pools. I'd imagine the upper pool is a treasure trove.