This was a whole new realm for me

Posted by Interdisciplinary 6 - The Sierra Nevada

April 1, 2007

An essay by Mike Price

I grew up in Iowa so I had no real knowledge of the Sierra Nevada until I moved to California in the 1980's. My first encounter was driving over them on Interstate 80 in a U-haul truck towing my pickup behind. At that time it seemed just to be a final obstacle to arriving in Auburn where I would store my belongings and eventually live and work. I remember my inexperience with driving a big truck and trying not to go uphill too slow or downhill too fast. Those runaway truck ramps with deep gravel seemed ominous.

After moving to Auburn and working throughout northern California, I traveled the foothills a fair amount, but didn't get too high into the mountains. Working as a salesman for a yellow page phone directory company, I covered a lot of miles in the towns of. Paradise, Oroville, Grass Valley, Nevada City, Auburn, Placerville, Jackson and Sonora. I found the areas very scenic with pine trees, rock and winding roads. I was mainly struck by the historical aspects of these communities. And the history wasn't that old. One hundred and fifty years is but a blip when compared to the centuries old structures in Europe. It seems the California Gold Rush towns were just recent, almost temporary entities. I could see what the buildings looked like during the Gold Rush days. But they did seem to have a more 'romantic' history than Iowa, where I grew up, even though the towns were slightly younger. There were also movie and TV tie-ins that some of the towns had, which was unheard of in my Midwestern life.

I never got interested in the natural history until I took some classes and field trips at Sierra College after the traveling job ended. In 1990 I took a couple of Saturday field trips with Dick Hilton, geology professor. One was up Interstate 80 with us stopping every few miles to learn about the geology of the Sierra. This was a whole new realm for me, having never had much geology around growing up. Understanding how elevation affected what trees and animals were around was new to me. And the history of the West and the Gold Rush was now immediate and not just words in a book. I continue to learn more and more of the Sierra and will never tire of the more there is to learn.