Yosemite National Park gets over 4-million visitors each season. It’s natural beauty is unparalleled, but it can get kind of crowded in the summertime.
After you’ve visited the sights at the park, consider taking a short excursion outside of the park to do some gold panning. There is no gold panning allowed within Yosemite, but fortunately there are many areas that you can explore nearby.
Some of California’s richest gold mining areas are just an hour away. Let’s look at a few places that you could explore.
Bodie
Bodie is a historic gold mining town just north of Mono Lake near the California/Nevada border. It is very well-preserved, and while it certainly doesn’t get the visitors that Yosemite does, an estimated 200,000 people come to Bodie each year to see the old mining relics.
This is a fun place to come and explore, but you aren’t going to find many opportunities for prospecting since it is within the state park. It’s still a cool place to check explore, and you could certainly try your hand at prospecting in the surrounding hills outside of the park.
Merced River
The closest gold prospecting area that you will find close to Yosemite National Park are on the Merced River. This was one of the many rich areas that was mined extensively during the California Gold Rush. There’s still a lot of gold hiding in the gravels of this river.
The Merced River Recreational Area covers several miles along the river near Briceburg. There are some active mining claims that you will need to be aware of, but there is still ample area for you to dip a gold pan. There is good gold here.
The Merced River Recreation Area is a great place to try some gold panning. It is not far from Yosemite National Park, and provides some good river access for panning and sluicing.
Tuolumne River
If you head west on Highway 120, there are many areas that you can access the Tuolumne River and countless tributaries that flow into it. This is all major gold country. The river eventually flows into Don Pedro Reservoir.
I’m not aware of any specific sites that are set aside for prospecting, but there is abundant public lands and historic mining activity in this area. With some research and a bit of trial-and-error you should be able to find some decent areas to prospect. As usual, the person willing to put on a pair of boots and get away from the roads is likely to have more success.
Coarsegold
The town of Coarsegold is at the southern end of the Mother Lode Country. Extremely rich deposits were discovered on Coarse Gold Creek and brought a slew of miners to the area back in the 1850s. The richest mine here was the Texas Flat Mine, a hard rock mine that followed a rich quartz vein underground.
You might consider joining the Coarsegold Gold Prospectors Club where they have monthly outings to productive gold claims every month. This is also a good opportunity to learn from more experienced prospectors on how to to find gold.
Yosemite Area Gold Prospecting
Yosemite National Park isn’t right in the heart of California’s gold country, but you can drive a short distance northeast and get to the historic mining town of Bodie, or venture a short drive to the west and get to several rich areas like the Merced River and Tuolumne River. If you do a bit of research you could probably find hundreds of small creeks and mines that could produce some gold for a hard working prospector.
There’s still gold out there to find. It’s not as easy to recover as it was back in 1849, but do some panning or sluicing in the creeks and river that the old timers once worked in will indeed produce a little “yella.”
Next: 16+ Pound Chunk of Raw Crystalline Gold Found in California