Bear Valley Region Attractions

The region surrounding Bear Valley is rich in geologic, natural, and historic treasures. West of Bear Valley down Highway 4 is one of the state's most impressive groves of giant sequoia redwoods. Farther west is one of the most charming stretches of California's Gold Rush Country, filled with museums, limestone caverns, gourmet restaurants, Victorian-era bed-and-breakfast inns, antique stores, and a host of vineyards and wineries. To the east, up over Ebbetts Pass and down the steep eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada range is picturesque Markleeville, the tiny town that is the county seat of Alpine County. From Markleeville, in the summer and fall months, it's only short (and incredibly scenic) drive to Lake Tahoe.

Calaveras Big Trees State Park
Visit this 6,300-acre state park 2.7 miles east of Arnold off Highway 4 and walk among the giant sequoia redwoods that grace the landscape here. There are more than a thousand of the stately ancient monarchs still standing in the park's two groves; one can only wonder what the groves looked like before the lumbermen arrived with their saws. A major attraction of the park is the Discovery Tree, today a 24-foot-diameter redwood stump. In 1853, it took five men over three weeks to fell this giant. Trails lace through the groves, offering a variety of hikes. Open year-round.

Gold Rush Museums
California's Mother Lode is one of the most historic regions of the state, as well it should be. The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma on the banks of the American River in 1848 changed the course of history (giving California quick entrée into the United States, helping the Union defeat the Confederacy during the Civil War with its gold reserves, and creating a population that has been in the forefront of social change ever since). Luckily, much of the rich history is intact and in place, as the following museums attest.

Ironstone Heritage Museum, Murphys, CA, displays gold mining artifacts from the days of the Gold Rush, including the world's largest crystalline gold leaf specimen (44 pounds). Open daily, summers.

Murphys Old Timers Museum, Murphys, CA, preserves the history and artifacts of Murphys inhabitants stretching back to the Gold Rush. Open Fridays through Sundays.

Angels Camp Museum, Angels Camp, CA, features Gold Rush memorabilia and has resurrected a blacksmith shop and a carriage barn. Open daily, summers; Wednesdays through Sundays, winters.

Sierra Nevada Logging Museum, White Pines, CA, one mile east of Arnold on the historic site of Blagen Sawmill's workers' homes, displays and interprets the history of logging and related industries throughout the Sierra Nevada in its 2,757-square-foot exhibit hall.

Alpine County Museum, Markleeville, CA, displays its historic 19th-century artifacts and memorabilia through reconstructed period rooms, from a living room to a retail shop to a kitchen. Peer in to the windows of the adjacent schoolhouse and see what a one-room schoolhouse of the 1880s looked like.

Limestone Caverns
Veins of gold are not the only anomaly found in the underside of the Sierra foothills. Throughout these rolling hills are hundreds of eerie, fascinating, colorful limestone caverns. Three of them, each a stone's throw from Highway 4, can be easily viewed by the public—no spelunker degree necessary!

Mercer Caverns, discovered by a gold prospector in 1885 and located one mile north of Murphys on Sheep Ranch Road, offers a subterranean show of stalactites, stalagmites, columns, helictites, flowstone, aragonite, and seven major chambers.

Moaning Cavern, located off Highway 4 four miles east of Angels Camp, has an underground vertical chamber so big that the Statue of Liberty would fit in it. Most visitors opt to view the chamber via the 100-foot spiral staircase, but more adventurous family members can go to the very bottom of the chamber by rappelling 165 feet down by rope.

California Cavern, approximately nine miles east of San Andreas, was discovered in 1849 and visited by naturalist John Muir in 1876. An hour-plus Trail of Lights family tour is filled with the hallmark formations of limestone caves: stalagmites, helictites, and crystal flowers. The four-hour-plus Middle Earth Expedition includes a rafting trip across a subterranean lake.