Along the southern stretch of what is now State Route 49 once stood the gold-rush camps. Today there are modern towns and small villages, with here and there deteriorating monuments. In the latter part of the 1800s, thousands of miners swarned through this area searching for gold in streams, hills and boulders. Town name such as Sonora, Chinese Camp, Murphys and Mormon Bar reflect the diversity of those eager prospectors.

For most of its first 30 miles, SR 49 through the Mother Lode is a high-speed, two-lane highway. North of Bear Valley the highway climbs in and out of the canyon of the Mercer River with sharp curves.

A side trip to Hornitos is made via steep, narrow two-lane roads, while Columbia, Murphys, Volcano and Fiddletown are situated on less challenging routes. Major highways through the southern Mother Lode lead east to the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite National Park and west of the San Joaquin Valley.

This part of the Mother Lode country stirs echoes of Gold Rush days. Here in Coloma, the birthplace of the January 1848 gold discovery, now a quiet village filled with historic landmarks. Farther north, about 18 miles, lies the now-bustling town of Auburn, where miners camped in 1848 and unearthed more of the precious metal. Just north of Plymouth, the landscape starts as gently rolling hills, then becomes river valleys and plateaus. Elevations range from 2000 feet to over 6000 feet at Yuba Pass. Summers are warm and dry, winters are often cold with occasional heavy snowfall in the upper elevation.

A side trip to Georgetown or Dutch Flat involves a good, well-maintained road, but Malakoff Diggins means taking an unpaved, narrow road. Important interstate, US and state highways through the Mother Lode lead to westward to Sacramento and east to North Lake Tahoe and into the Sierra Nevada.