The surge has not only inspired seasoned miners, but is also drawing newcomers who want to learn how to find gold.
ANGELS CAMP, Calif.—Record-high gold prices hovering at about $5,000 per ounce have triggered a renewed interest in prospecting and mining and what could be the start of a mini gold rush in the California Mother Lode, according to local miners.
The historic belt of gold quartz veins in the Sierra Nevadas spawned the 19th-century gold rush and continues to draw modern prospectors.
The spike in gold prices has made small- and medium-scale mining operations more feasible, said Rusty Simpson, co-CEO of Meeting of the Mines Goldstrike Corp., based in Angels Camp.
“Up in the Mother Lode, there’s tailing piles everywhere that the old miners back in the day didn’t crush because it was low grade,” Simpson told The Epoch Times. Tailings are the waste materials left behind from previous mining operations.
“That low-grade stuff now is worth crushing, so we’re actually crushing a lot of the old tailings.”
Gold prices spiked to the highest they have ever been, peaking at more than $5,600 per troy ounce on Jan. 29, 2026, as investors and banks increased gold holdings to hedge economic uncertainty and inflation. The price has since dropped but has remained at about $5,000.
At those prices, it does not take much gold to make money even “a quarter ounce at [a] time,” Simpson said.
The surge has not only inspired seasoned miners, but is also drawing newcomers who want to learn how to find gold.
“There’s people everywhere mining,” he said. “A lot of the older people are coming back, since gold’s been so high. A lot of newcomers wanting to learn how to placer mine are getting into it.”
By Brad Jones
