Contact: Jack Raudy
(530) 389-9154 or jraudy@foothill.net

SACRAMENTO (March 22, 2006) – Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) and other four-wheel drive owners are invited to join the Sacramento-based Capital City Mountain Goat Four Wheel Drive Club on an off road adventure in the history-rich Nevada County gold country on Saturday, May 13.

According to Doug Sinclair, one of the event organizers, this narrated four-wheel drive excursion will follow an unusual single lane shelf road as it descends and crosses the middle fork of the Yuba River. He said the former stagecoach route was constructed with a near-vertical stone wall hand-built by Italian stone masons more than 90 years ago.

Participants will be treated to a mouth-watering hot lunch in historical Alleghany, an 1850 gold mining town that still has active mining ongoing today. The return trip will take guests by the Plumbago Mine, through the historic town of North Bloomfield and the trip will conclude at the Malakoff Diggins State Park.

Sinclair said guests would have ample time at the 3,000-acre Malakoff Diggins State Park to learn about the story of hydraulic gold mining. He explained that hydraulickers used highly-pressurized water to move an estimated 41 million cubic yards of earth¸ leaving an open pit more than a mile long and 600 feet deep. The stark walls of Malakoff Diggins now stand in memory of hydraulic mining.

"This trip is truly family oriented and affords an opportunity for some mild four-wheeling and learning about the early gold miners who worked in this region," said Sinclair. Participants will learn that by the mid-1850’s, an estimated 120,000 miners were at work in California. For the most part, prospectors found little romance in the Gold Rush; mining was hard, dirty work. Prices were high, living conditions bad. Few miners struck it rich and most of the profits went to merchants and suppliers.

Sinclair said that cost for this off road trip is $45 for adults, $20 for children six through 15 years of age and children five and under are welcome free of charge.

The trip price includes a gourmet hot lunch, soft drinks, historical information and maps, a dash plaque and a copy of "Guide to Safe, Common Sense Off Road Driving," written by Mark Smith.

To order a registration package or for more information on this exciting off road trip, contact Doug Sinclair at 916/784-9379 or email suv.runs.ccmg@gmail.com  or visit the club’s website at www.ccmg4wd.org .

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