The Big Cut
At the very top of Big Cut Road you drive thru a very, very large unnatural cut in the natural terrain. This was created during the Gold Rush by hydraulic mining. Placerville was rich in placer deposits of gold, and as it became harder to remove this precious ore, alternate methods of mining were developed. By the 1850s, as more and more dirt had to be moved to find less and less gold, the time of the lone miner equipped with a pick and a pan were over. Bigger equipment, owned by large companies, took over. The first use of hydraulic mining in California occurred in 1853 in Nevada City. Hydraulic mining became the largest-scale, and most devastating, form of placer mining. By the mid-1880’s, it is estimated that 11 million ounces of gold (worth approximately US$7.5 billion at 2006 prices) had been recovered by this form of mining. The Weber Creek Canyon, which is to the West and below this site, was a very active mining area and still has many small mines, most of which are now on private property.
Hydraulic Mining (or Hydraulicking, as it was called) was an effective but destructive method of mining. Water under pressure was directed at hillsides of soft gravels through a hose with a nozzle called a monitor or giant, causing mud to run down into long lines of sluice boxes and causing banks to disintegrate. The incoming water often ran for many miles from the higher mountains in flumes that were costly to build, but water reached the mining site with enough force to shoot 400 feet into the air after it was dropped from hundreds of feet almost vertically down to the mining site. Thus, the sheer weight of the water, at about 5000 pounds of pressure, being pulled almost straight down by gravity for that distance produced the destructive force needed. The monitors were systematically waved back and forth, boring into the land and the pressure was sufficient to blast away entire hillsides. One journalist observed, "a handful of men took out the very heart of a mountain." The gravels were then washed through sluices, and the heavy gold settled behind riffle boards. The rest of the mountainside was washed into the streams and rivers. Water companies were formed and, like the merchants and shippers who supplied the gold fields with tools and supplies, owners of water companies became wealthy. By 1858 hydraulic mining ruled the day.
There was, however, a high cost to be paid. One visitor to a massive hydraulic mining pit observed: “Nature here reminds one of a princess fallen into the hands of robbers who cut off her fingers for the jewels she wears”. Water that was diverted to dry land created a boggy mud that destroyed habitats and flooded the land of farmers living downstream. This by-product of hydraulic mining, a thick mud and silt called slickens, which was somewhere between sand and gravel, with a few occasional boulders thrown in, ruined farm land downstream and caused navigation hazards in major rivers and San Francisco Bay. This massive amount of debris literally buried many Sierra streams, which had been teaming with trout, salmon, and other wildlife, sometimes under one hundred feet of gravel. It changed those natural habitats irrevocably. For example, between 1849 and 1909, 685 million cubic feet of mining debris was dumped into the Yuba River. Marysville and Yuba City were clogged with mud and gravel that washed downriver from the Oroville mines. By 1868 the river beds were higher than Marysville's streets, and levee building began. Where the Yuba River flushed much of the gravel downstream, inundating rich farmlands, some sites, like the Bear River Canyon, remain buried to this day.
It was in 1883, due to a decision by Judge Lorenzo Sawyer, that hydraulic mining came to an end in California. Forever. It was, perhaps, the first environmental victory won in California.
I have added old photos showing hydraulic mining to the photo gallery on the description page. Please take the time to look at these, some are really amazing.
THERE IS NO PARKING AT THE CACHE SITE...park to the south, on the west side of the road, near the gated community entrance.
The container is large enough for smaller trade items or TB’s as well as the log book. It is camo’d and about 2”x2”x11”. Please watch for the normal local creepy crawlies and note that at times there can be a lot of traffic on this road, so be watchful of your little ones. A stealthy retrieval should not be a problem, as you can hear the cars coming for a while, and just wait them out. There are occasional walkers, bike riders, also.
UPDATE 1/25/10: The original container went missing and has been replaced by a smaller, more generic, one to see if it lasts.
Please replace as found, so that the next cacher can have the same enjoyable experience.
Have fun and take time to look around at the BIG CUT around you!
CONGRATS to GeoTigger&BigDaddy757 and Hairy Mary for the CO-FTF!