Calaveras County
Gold Country

Calaveras County is located in the Gold Country of California. Angels Camp is its only incorporated city. The uncommon gold telluride mineral calaverite is named for the county. Mark Twain set his story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", in the county. Each year, the county hosts its County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee, featuring a frog jumping contest, to celebrate the association with Twain's story.

Calaveras Big Trees State Park, a preserve of Giant Sequoia trees, is located in the county several miles east of the town of Arnold on state highway 4. Other attractions in the Park include the Stanislaus River, Beaver Creek, the Lava Bluff Trail and Bradley Trail. The Park also houses two main campgrounds with a total of 129 campsites, six picnic areas and hundreds of miles of established trails. Other activities include cross-country skiing, evening ranger talks, numerous interpretive programs, environmental educational programs, junior ranger programs, hiking, mountain biking, bird watching and summer school activities for school children. Dogs are welcome in the park on leash in developed areas like picnic sites, campgrounds, roads and fire roads. Dogs are not allowed on the designated trails, nor in the woods in general.

Mercer Caverns are located outside of Murphys in Calaveras County California. They are named after the gold prospector Walter J. Mercer who discovered the caves around 1885 and filed a claim.

Moaning Cavern is a limestone cave located near Vallecito, California in the heart of the state's Gold Country. It was discovered in modern times by gold miners in 1851, but it has long been known as an interesting geological feature by prehistoric peoples. It gets its name from the moaning sound made by water dripping into small holes at the bottom of the "chocolate waterfall" flowstone formation, causing a drumming sound, which would echo off the cave walls and be carried by the wind out of the natural entrance of the cavern. While the nearby California Caverns are the largest network of caves in California, Moaning Cavern is the largest single cave on the west coast, tall and spacious enough inside to hold the Statue of Liberty. It is open to the public for walking tours, rappelling, and spelunking.
Moaning Cavern is also an archaeological site, where some of the oldest human remains known in America were discovered. The cave has long been the resting spot for the bodies of prehistoric people who fell into its opening. The bones were preserved by the mineral-rich water in the cave.