Placer Mining

If it weren’t for the glaciers that filled the alpine valleys as recently as 10,000 years ago, the history of Summit County would have been quite different.  Glaciers and running water (rain and snowmelt) eroded gold-bearing rocks in the mountains and carried the flakes of gold into the county’s streams and rivers.  There they settled to the bottom of the deep glacial gravels that filled these valleys to depths as much as 90 feet.