The old CA-49 bridge on the South Yuba River 2017

The U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed March 10, 2011 South Yuba River is a left-entering tributary of the

Yuba River The Yuba River is a tributary of the Feather River in the Sierra Nevada and eastern Sacramento Valley, in the U.S. state of California. The main stem of the river is about long, and its headwaters are split into three major forks. The Yuba River ...

originating in the northern

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

at Lake Angela in Nevada County about three quarters of a mile north of

Donner Pass Donner Pass is a mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada, above Donner Lake and Donner Memorial State Park about west of Truckee, California. Like the Sierra Nevada themselves, the pass has a steep approach from the east and a gradual appro ...

, about three miles east of the town of Soda Springs. After passing through Lake Van Norden with Upper Castle Creek (longer than the Lake Angela stem) entering from the right, it gathers numerous snow-fed tributaries running west through a marshy, lake-filled valley, criss-crossing

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one o ...

. The river briefly enters

Placer County Placer County ( ; Spanish for "sand deposit"), officially the County of Placer, is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 404,739. The county seat is Auburn. Placer County is included in the Great ...

, then flows into Lake Spaulding, then plunges westward into a steep-sided valley. Canyon Creek enters from the right, then Poorman Creek also from the right near the town of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. The river continues west into the foothills, crossing under State Route 49. Its mouth is on the east shore of upper Englebright Lake, formed by a dam across the Yuba River. The

California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, commonly referred to as OEHHA (pronounced oh-EEE-ha), is a specialized department within the cabinet-level California Environmental Protection Agency ( CalEPA) with responsibility for evaluatin ...

has issued a safe eatin
advisory
for any fish caught in South Yuba River due to elevated levels of mercury and PCBs.

Recreation

The river begins within the

Tahoe National Forest Tahoe National Forest is a United States National Forest located in California, northwest of Lake Tahoe. It includes the peak of Sierra Buttes, near Sierra City, which has views of Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta. It is located in parts of six cou ...

. Parks along or near the South Yuba River include: *

Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park is a state park unit preserving the largest hydraulic mining site in California, United States. The mine was one of several hydraulic mining sites at the center of the 1882 landmark case '' Woodruff v. Nor ...

* South Yuba River State Park

Course

References

External links

{{Authority control * Y Rivers of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Tributaries of the Feather River Tahoe National Forest Rivers of Northern California Rivers of the Sierra Nevada in California

Recreation

Course

See also

References

External links