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Independence Trail LbNA #30047

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Apr 13, 2007
Location:
City:Nevada City
County:Nevada
State:California
Boxes:1
Planted by:Foothill Forester
Found by: fleetwood7
Last found:Sep 23, 2012
Status:FFFFFFFFFF
Last edited:Apr 13, 2007
Degree of Difficulty – easy.
Distance – about 1 mile round trip.
Estimated Time – about 1 hour.
Terrain – generally flat dirt trail.
Accessibility – accessible to all.

The Independence Trail is the first wilderness trail in the country with wheelchair accessibility.
The origin of the Independence Trail was an old, abandoned miner's ditch, previously known as the Excelsior Canal. Hydraulic Mining in the 1850's required large amounts of water for the giant water cannons (Monitors) used in washing away the mountain sides in search of gold. It was built to carry water from the South Yuba river to hydraulic mining sites in Smartsville, 25 miles downstream. When California outlawed hydraulic mining in 1884, the ditch was used for irrigation until 1967, when it was abandoned.
In 1975 the dream of the Independence Trail came about and has been moving forward ever since.

CLUES: From Nevada City take Highway 49 North about 5.5 miles. Park and find the Trailhead. (Please be careful with traffic!) Travel on the trail west until you come to the South Yuba Overlook. Sign in, have a look see, and move along. Keep going until you reach the "Diamond Head"(Take care of busines if need be... but don't stay long). From Diamond Head start counting your paces: 270 (540 steps), It'll be a little over a 1/4 mile until you come to the area known as "Flume 25". Stop at the small 8' long wooden bridge and look upstream. Up on the bank to the right of the creek find the large Madrone Tree (approximately 3 feet diameter) that looks like it has been painted with green paint. The letter box is in a very mossy rock pile about 8 feet to the left of this Madrone. Please keep the rock pile mossy and re-hide well.

Once making the find keep moving along! The trail offers some spectacular views of other flumes, fishing platforms and the like but... most of all Rush Creek Falls.