Middle Fork American River

California

Rafters on the Middle Fork shoot through a tunnel that gold miners blasted through solid rock in the eighteen fifties.

historicalengineeringnatural

Below Oxbow Dam the Middle Fork American River disappears into a hole in the rock. The spot is called Tunnel Chute. Miners blasted that tunnel during the Gold Rush, not to move boats or water for its own sake, but to drain the riverbed so they could dig in it. Send the river through the hill and the old channel goes dry, and whatever gold sat in the gravel is yours. The tunnel is still there, and so is the river running through it. This was one of the richest gold mining stretches in California in the eighteen fifties, and people still work it recreationally today. Downstream the canyon widens out into the Auburn State Recreation Area, one of the most popular whitewater runs in the state, with guided trips from May into October. The nastiest rapid on the whole river sits down in those gentler foothills, at Ruck-A-Chucky Falls.

This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
the Middle Fork flows through Tunnel Chute, where the river races through a man-made tunnel blasted out during the California Gold Rush, in order to dewater part of the river bed for mining

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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