The Contact: Headwaters

Above the tree line, across an expanse of meadow and scattered granite blocks, we have a view of the contact of the eastern edge of the white Sierra Batholith and the mineralized Saddlebag Lake pendant. Here, people labored fruitlessly for gold and silver 140 years ago. In the early summer this contact is covered with greenery, fed by tiny streams, headwaters of the Tuolumne River not too many miles away. The streams merge with others and flow out of the Sierra Nevada, through the Central Valley of California eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean.