Something that really struck me as i rode back along the Trinity River and the northernmost part of Trinity Lake was the level of devastation done to the river, its banks, and all the surrounding streams by the giant machinery used to mine for gold. First dredges, then monitors (massive high-pressure water cannons) were used to literally blast away entire hillsides. A brief history of this highly destructive form of gold mining can be found here, and an excellent website with lots more old photos of the era here
Trinity Lake and River were permanently scarred by the aggressive dredging and hydraulic mining that was at its peak in the early 20th century and continued as late as 1959, a period of nearly 110 years of mining. where the river meets the lake had been so heavily dredged that its width was stretched out to the very edge of the mountainside and is now filled with the discarded rock waste called tailings; the entire area is made up of massive piles of rocks and boulders covering so much area that you can see them in a satellite view:
I took this picture from East Side road facing west:
Throughout the region as far north as Galice, OR i continued to see tailings and scarred creek beds. In nearly every case they appeared virtually unchanged from the time they were created, preventing any re vegetation. what a mess...
