French Corral, California

Birchville (until 1853, Johnson's Diggings) is a historic mining and agricultural community in Nevada County, California. Birchville is located about 10 miles northwest of Nevada City and about 2 miles northeast of French Corral. It is situated at an elevation of 1,765 ft (538 m) above sea level.

Bridgeport (also: Nyes Landing and Nye's Crossing) is a former settlement on the Yuba River in Nevada County, California, 2 mi (3.2 km) from the town of French Corral. Its elevation is 567 ft (173 m) above sea level.It is notable for the Bridgeport Covered Bridge, a national and state historic landmark, used as a pedestrian crossing over the South Yuba River. The South Yuba River State Park is adjacent.

South Yuba River State Park is located along the South Fork of the Yuba River in the Sierra Nevada, within Nevada County, in Northern California.

The Bridgeport Covered Bridge is located in Bridgeport, Nevada County, California, southwest of French Corral and north of Lake Wildwood. It is used as a pedestrian crossing over the South Yuba River. The bridge was built in 1862 by David John Wood. Its lumber came from Plum Valley in Sierra County, California. The bridge was closed to vehicular traffic in 1972 and pedestrian traffic in 2011 due to deferred maintenance and "structural problems".On June 20, 2014, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed budget legislation that included $1.3 million for the bridge's restoration. The work was slated to be done in two phases—near-term stabilization followed by restoration. The bridge reopened to pedestrians in November 2021 following completion of the restoration work.The Bridgeport Covered Bridge has the longest clear single span of any surviving wooden covered bridge in the world.

Condemned Bar is a former settlement, in El Dorado County, California. It is in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The former town is now under Folsom Lake. A Historical Landmark marker was built at Folsom Lake State Recreation Area. The former mining town of the California Gold Rush is registered as California Historical Landmark #572.

Jones Bar is a former settlement in Nevada County, California. It is located at an elevation of 1073 feet (327 m). Jones Bar is located on the South Yuba River, 5.25 miles (8.4 km) west-northwest of Nevada City.

The 49er Fire was a large and destructive wildfire in September 1988 in the U.S. state of California's Nevada County and Yuba County. After igniting on the morning of September 11, when a homeless schizophrenic man accidentally set brush alight by burning toilet paper, the fire burned 33,700 acres throughout the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, impinging on the communities of Lake Wildwood, Rough and Ready, and Smartsville, before being declared contained on September 16. Driven by severe drought conditions and strong, dry winds, firefighting crews were hard-pressed to stop the fire's advance until winds calmed and humidity levels recovered. The 49er Fire destroyed 312 structures, including more than 140 homes, making it the most destructive wildfire in Nevada County's history and—at the time—one of the five most destructive wildfires in recorded California history. It was also the seventh most expensive California wildfire in terms of losses, which amounted to approximately $23 million. The fire highlighted the rapid pace and potential consequences of development in the wildland-urban interface, or WUI, along with several other fires in that time period, such as the Oakland firestorm of 1991 and the Fountain Fire in 1992. The 49er Fire was sometimes called the "wildfire of the 1990s" by officials in attempts to raise awareness of the growing challenges of firefighting in areas where human structures are intermingled with wildland fuels.

Sweetland is a former settlement in Nevada County, California. Located approximately 20 mi (32 km) east of Marysville, It is situated at an elevation of 1,857 ft (566 m) above sea level.

The Independence Trail is located approximately 7 miles from downtown Nevada City within the South Yuba River State Park in the Sierra Nevada foothills within Nevada County, in Northern California. The trail is the former Excelsior Ditch, which was found and repaired by John Olmsted and a large group of local volunteers. It is notable for being the first ADA approved wheelchair nature trail. It topped the list of "favorite trails for 2013" in The Sacramento Bee newspaper.Founded by Olmsted and Sally Cates, and built with help from countless locals, the Independence Trail transformed the historic Excelsior gold mining ditch into the nation's first identified handicapped-accessible wilderness trail. It was one of the most popular trails in the area, contouring along wooded hillsides, passing live streams, and crossing deep gorges on restored wooden flumes that once transported water for hydraulic mining. Due to safety hazards caused by landslides from heavy storms in 2017 and the Jones Fire of 2020 destroying the wooden walkways, the trail is closed until further notice. It is in the process of being rebuilt.The trail has two separate sections—West and East—that extend from one main trailhead on California State Route 49. Independence Trail West is oriented for most of its length around the canyon of Rush Creek, a large tributary stream that enters the South Yuba River at Jones Bar. The West trail features several wooden flumes, a large covered viewpoint, picnic tables and benches. Flume 28, over 500' in length, crosses above a waterfall on Rush Creek 1.1 miles west of the trailhead. It is a "must see" piece of mining history. The Independence Trail utilizes the old Excelsior Canal, built between 1854 and 1859 by hundreds of Chinese laborers. To bring high pressure water for hydraulic mining. The ditch tapped the South Yuba river more than 2 miles upstream from here, and ran all the way to what is now the dam at Lake Wildwood, then by the China Ditch to the Smartsville mining district, 15 miles west of Grass Valley. After hydraulic mining was outlawed in the 1880s the "Excelsior Ditch" was used for agricultural irrigation until it was abandoned in 1963. In 1969, John Olmsted rediscovered the rock-lined ditches, adjacent paths for ditch tenders, and wooden flumes that provided access over ravines. It is a gold country gem and part of the South Yuba River State Park.

The North Yuba River (also called the North Fork Yuba River) is the main tributary of the Yuba River in northern California in the United States. The river is about 61 miles (98 km) long and drains from the Sierra Nevada westwards towards the foothills between the mountains and the Sacramento Valley. It rises on the Sierra Crest about 8 miles (13 km) northwest of Sierraville. The river flows west through meadows, then south into a gorge, turning west again, followed by California State Route 49. The river's four major tributaries, the Downie River, Goodyears Creek, Canyon Creek and Slate Creek, enter from the right before the river abruptly turns south at the New Bullards Bar Reservoir, formed by the New Bullards Bar Dam. The dam is situated right above the river's mouth; just after the North Yuba leaves the dam it empties into the Middle Yuba River and forms the Yuba River.

The Middle Yuba River is one of the three main forks of the Yuba River in Northern California in the United States. The river rises at the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and flows generally west through canyons to join the North Yuba River near North San Juan. The confluence of the two rivers forms the main stem of the Yuba River, which then continues west to join the Feather River. The Middle Yuba forms much of the border between Nevada County and Sierra County and in its lower reaches a small segment of the Nevada–Yuba County line. The Middle Yuba drains a remote, rugged portion of the Tahoe National Forest, with elevations ranging from 8,373 ft (2,552 m) at English Mountain to 1,129 ft (344 m) at the confluence with the Yuba River. The river is dammed and diverted several times to provide hydroelectricity, greatly reducing the flow in all but the wettest years. Jackson Meadows Dam and Milton Diversion Dam near the headwaters are part of the Yuba-Bear Hydroelectric Project, which transport water to the South Yuba and Bear Rivers. Jackson Meadows Reservoir, stocked with 10,000 pounds of rainbow trout annually, is also a popular recreation area.Further downstream, Our House Dam diverts water through a series of tunnels to New Bullards Bar Reservoir on the North Yuba River. Water is also taken from Oregon Creek, the main tributary of the Middle Yuba. This enables the generation of more power at the New Colgate Powerhouse, situated 4.7 miles (7.6 km) downstream from the confluence of the North and Middle Yuba Rivers.The Middle Yuba River was a major mining site during the California Gold Rush. It was one of the areas most heavily affected by hydraulic mining, which washed large volumes of loose sediment into the river channel. In 1941 the Englebright Dam was constructed on the Yuba River below the Middle Fork to capture this debris before it could travel further downstream.In 2008 studies were carried out by the Nevada Irrigation District, which owns Jackson Meadows and Milton Dams, to determine optimum flows for whitewater boating. This may ultimately result in the restoration of some of the natural flows to the Middle Yuba. The minimum required release from Milton Dam is 3 cubic feet per second (0.085 m3/s), a tiny fraction of the pre-development flow.

The Woolman Semester was a semester school focused on the intersections of peace, social justice, and sustainability. The school operated from the Spring of 2004 through the Spring of 2016. Students came from all over the country to attend Woolman for a single semester during their high school junior, senior, or gap year. Students spent a semester deeply immersed in contemporary topics and exploring issues first hand . Students worked with each other, staff and interns to run the daily operations of the school, including cooking meals, chopping firewood, and growing and harvesting the food eaten at the school. The classes of the program were Global Thinking, Peace Studies, Environmental Science, Non-violent Communication, Ceramics, and Farm to Table. Woolman is the only Quaker (Friends) semester school in the country, and in accordance with the philosophy of Quaker Education the Woolman Semester curriculum centers around collaboration, activism, and open inquiry into local and global issues.