This is a theme tour to see a historic region that I have mostly never seen before. The main objective is to see the historic gold mining towns on California highway 49, the Gold Rush highway.

The original plan was to start in Reno but I realized that I could start in Carson City and also visit America's most amazing silver mining town. The Gold Rush tour evolved into a Silver and Gold tour.

It's easier to visualize the route if you click the button in the upper right of the map and select Terrain view.

Rivers

Rivers are also a theme because the route crosses so many rivers. East of the Sierra Nevada I cross the Truckee river which is a basin river that originates high in the mountains at Lake Tahoe and evaporates in the desert at Pyramid Lake. West of the Sierra Nevada the route crosses many "normal" rivers that flow to the Pacific Ocean. All the rivers are in deep canyons. A massive descent and ascent is required to cross each river.

The region is in the midst of a multi-year drought. River flows were lower than usual for May.

Climate

Most of the route has a semi-arid climate. Most of the gold rush highway is low elevation foothills that are extremely hot during summer. I did this tour in May to have warm but not excessively hot weather and have minimal risk of wildfires. May is the last month that the landscape is still green from the previous winter's rains. The landscape is more brown in summer and fall.

Traffic

I knew in advance that part of the route is far from an ideal bike route. 20 million people live near the gold country. In the middle of the tour I had 5 days of heavy traffic on narrow winding roads with no shoulder.

History

The state of Nevada is known as the Silver State. The town of Virginia City was home to the richest silver mine in the nation at the time, the Comstock Lode. Knowledge of the deposit spread in 1859, 11 years after gold was discovered in California. Production continued until the 1920's. Silver was the catalyst for Nevada's rapid early growth and rapid achievement of statehood in 1864.

The state of California is known as the Golden State. Gold was discovered by accident in 1848.  The peak of the gold rush was 1848-1855, but mines continued producing large quantities of gold for decades. Gold led to an extremely rapid transformation of California. The gold was so valuable that California achieved statehood in 1850, long before most of the state was settled. Indigenous lands were confiscated and spoiled. Prosperous cities appeared seemingly overnight. The primary goal of this tour is to see the 1850's gold rush towns.