California's most famous gold rush dates to the morning of January 24, 1848, when James Marshall made his customary inspection of the sawmill he was building for John Sutter. Word of Marshall's discovery leaked out and immediately set off a "rush to the mines." By the spring of 1849, the largest gold rush in American history was under way.

This unique itinerary takes us back into the history of the Gold Rush Era. The riverfront embarcadero and commercial district of the Gold Rush preserved at Old Sacramento teemed with activity as would-be miners disembarked from riverboats and regrouped before setting out for the Mother Lode.

While gold-seekers were pouring through Sacramento and into the Sierra, deposits of the precious metal were also discovered in the Klamath Mountains of northwest California. Today, ruins of the historic town of Shasta and the Chinese temple at Weaverville Joss House State Historic Park recall the days of the Klamath gold rush. In combination, the Mother Lode and the Klamath gold fields produced the modern-day equivalent of more than $25 billion in gold before the turn of the century.