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00:00It's easy to understand why the United States went to war to get California.
00:07Just fly through its ancient forests, where you can peer up at the tallest trees on earth,
00:13float down on volcanic forms that can take your breath away, and race along a lost coast
00:20that can make you feel like you've discovered paradise.
00:24But the beauty of Northern California's majestic landscapes can be deceiving.
00:30Deep below are still powerful forces that remain the greatest threats to life above.
00:35It was in California's snowy peaks that the famous Donner Party suffered one of the worst
00:41tragedies in the history of the American West.
00:44And here, years of drought have threatened to destroy a central valley that's one of
00:49the agricultural wonders of the world.
00:53But no matter what forces nature sends their way, Californians have endured, thanks to
00:58the promise of the frontier.
01:00It was here where hopeful American settlers stood their ground against Mexican rule, where
01:06one man's chance discovery in a creek triggered hundreds of thousands to make a mad rush for
01:11gold, and where a new generation of marijuana growers is testing the limits of the law high
01:18in the infamous Emerald Triangle.
01:22It was on a hill overlooking a bay that a once tiny Spanish mission gave birth to one
01:27of America's great cities, with its famous cable cars and winding streets.
01:33The marvels of this Pacific Coast state can seem endless, from its giant dams, to its
01:39bridges, and the vast new headquarters of its Silicon Valley giants.
01:44All this in the northern half of the Golden State, California.
02:23There's a place in northern California where it's possible to imagine what the Pacific
02:30Coast was like long before it was crowded with humans.
02:35It's a remote stretch of shoreline where rugged mountains plunge right down to the sea.
02:41There's nothing else like it anywhere in California.
02:46It's the only place where there aren't any highways close to the water, and that's one
02:51reason it's called the Lost Coast.
02:55Here, come summer, seals gather on its rocky beaches, and mother gray whales raise their
03:02young in these clear, green Pacific waters.
03:06These are just two of the many species that cling to the North American continent's western
03:12edge.
03:17This stretch of the Lost Coast is part of the King Range National Conservation Area,
03:22created by Congress in 1970.
03:27To get here, hikers take a 25-mile trail.
03:31But when the tide comes in, they have to be careful.
03:35It's easy to get trapped on the beach under the cliffs, and then washed out to sea.
03:41But while this may provide a glimpse of what California was probably like thousands of
03:45years ago, it wasn't always this uninhabited.
03:49In fact, after humans arrived in North America, the area that's now California was one of
03:55the most populated regions of the United States, probably because of its mild climate.
04:01It was home to a wide range of tribes who fished its waters and traded with each other.
04:06But their ways of life, and the land itself, were radically transformed starting in the
04:1116th century.
04:14That's when Spanish and British navigators first began exploring California's shore and
04:19claiming vast stretches of it as their own.
04:26The Spanish sailed up the California coast as early as 1542, but it wasn't until the
04:3218th century that they began constructing a series of missions here.
04:37They built their sixth mission in what's now San Francisco.
04:42It was given the name Mission de San Francisco de Assis, but is better known as Mission Dolores.
04:49This adobe-style mission dates back to 1791, and is the oldest intact building in San Francisco
04:55today.
04:57It survived centuries of change, and even major earthquakes.
05:02In 1918, a much larger basilica was built next door.
05:08The Spaniards used their missions to convert Native Americans to Christianity and help
05:12the Spanish settle and dominate the region.
05:16The town that grew up around the old mission went on to become San Francisco, which was
05:21named after this now tiny Spanish church.
05:25But the Spanish didn't hold onto California for long.
05:30In 1821, Mexico won its independence from Spain.
05:35The vast Spanish colony of Alta California soon became a province of Mexico.
05:43In 1839, a Swiss immigrant named John Sutter arrived and managed to convince the Mexican
05:48governor to give him almost 50,000 acres of land to create a settlement he called New
05:54Switzerland.
05:59He also convinced Indians from the area to help him build a fort, which came to be known
06:03as Sutter's Fort, and a major destination for American settlers who started arriving
06:08in Alta California.
06:12But over time, Mexican authorities became suspicious of the Americans, and threatened
06:17to kick them out if they didn't become Mexican citizens.
06:21In June 1846, fearful that they were about to be expelled, a few Americans in the region
06:27decided to revolt.
06:30They launched an assault on the town of Sonoma.
06:34Calling themselves Osos, Spanish for bears, they took a Mexican general hostage, seized
06:40control of a local barracks here, and raised their own flag, with the image of a grizzly
06:45bear on it, and the words, California Republic.
06:49Their action would be known as the Bear Flag Revolt.
06:53Today, the California state flag has the image of a grizzly bear on it, and still reads,
06:58California Republic, to honor those early American settlers who had stood their ground
07:03here on California soil.
07:06But their self-declared republic lasted less than a month.
07:13U.S. President James K. Polk desperately wanted California for the U.S., and so he tried to
07:19buy it from Mexico for $20 million.
07:22The Mexicans refused to sell, which was one reason the U.S. went to war with Mexico in
07:28May 1846.
07:33During that war, California continued to lure American settlers, even though the journey
07:38they had to take to get here could be treacherous.
07:44To reach the safety of Sutter's Fort, travelers first had to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains
07:50that straddle California's border with Nevada.
07:54Today, Amtrak's California Zephyr carries passengers over these mountains every day
08:00on its journey between Chicago, Illinois and Emeryville, California.
08:05It's the longest route by a single train in the entire Amtrak system.
08:11The trip covers more than 2,400 miles and takes more than two days.
08:16On its journey west, the Zephyr passes through the town of Truckee, and then up and over
08:21the Donner Pass.
08:25This pass was named for a now infamous group of settlers who tried to cross the Sierras
08:30on foot long before there was a rail line or even any kind of paved road.
08:37What happened to them here would go down as one of the greatest tragedies in the history
08:41of the American West.
08:46In October 1846, a group of 87 settlers known as the Donner Party finally reached the eastern
08:53edge of the Sierras.
08:57They and their wagon train were weeks behind schedule.
09:00They had taken bad advice and gotten bogged down crossing the famous Salt Flats of Utah
09:06on what was supposed to be a shortcut.
09:09As they started to make their way into the mountains, winter was approaching, and snow
09:14was already falling a month earlier than usual.
09:17Soon, they found themselves fighting the worst winter in the Sierras' history.
09:22Trapped by the snow on the high passes, they set camp here, near a body of water that's
09:27now known as Donner Lake.
09:30They were forced to remain here and wait for a chance to make it over the mountains and
09:34to safety at Sutter's Fort.
09:37Deep snow and hostile members of the Paiute tribe made it too dangerous to return the
09:42way they had come.
09:44The snow kept falling.
09:46In some places, it reached depths of up to 20 feet.
09:50Help didn't arrive.
09:56By mid-December 1846, the Donner Party's food supplies were dwindling.
10:01On December 16th, a member of their party died from starvation, the first of many.
10:07They had already killed and eaten their own oxen, and then even boiled the oxen's hides
10:13to make a glue-like substance they hoped would give them nourishment.
10:17When the men headed off into the forests near the lake to hunt, they often returned empty-handed.
10:23Archaeologists have discovered that they ate twigs, bark, and rodents to survive.
10:28Finally, 15 of the strongest members of the group decided one last time to try to cross
10:33the mountains.
10:34But the snow held them back yet again.
10:38Stranded on the high passes, they ran out of food entirely.
10:43When members of the group died, the others are believed to have resorted to cannibalism
10:47to survive.
10:48Of the 87 immigrants who had set out from Illinois, only 46 survived the journey.
10:57One of the youngest was eight-year-old Patti Reed.
11:00She managed to carry a doll with her through the mountains, which is on display here at
11:05Sutter's Fort.
11:07Little did she and the others who survived the journey know that they were about to witness
11:12one of the greatest events in the history of the nation, the California Gold Rush.
11:17In 1848, two years after the Donner Party's tragedy in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the
11:26U.S. signed a treaty ending its war with Mexico, which agreed to cede a vast area of
11:30the West to the U.S. government, including all the land that's now present-day California.
11:38It amounted to a third of the United States' current territory, but it came at a cost.
11:4313,000 American soldiers had died in the war.
11:53One year later, in 1849, thousands of people started pouring into California, stricken
12:00with gold fever.
12:02It all started when John Sutter and a carpenter named James Marshall were building a sawmill
12:0745 miles northeast of Sutter's Fort, here in Coloma.
12:12On January 24, 1848, Marshall noticed glints of gold in the water flowing through the mill's
12:18tailrace.
12:21Soon, California's Gold Rush was on.
12:26Marshall's finding led to the largest mass movement of people in the history of the Western
12:31Hemisphere.
12:32Hundreds of thousands of would-be millionaires were soon doing whatever they could to get
12:36to California, so they could slosh around in its waterways and search for treasure.
12:44The town around Sutter's Fort became a supply depot for the miners, and was transformed
12:49into a boomtown called Sacramento.
12:53The next year, in 1850, California was made America's 31st state.
12:59It went directly to statehood.
13:01Unlike many other states, California was never a territory.
13:06Sacramento was made its new capital.
13:08By 1860, a new statehouse was rising in the center of town, modeled after the U.S. Capitol
13:14in Washington.
13:16It's been home to two movie stars turned governors, Ronald Reagan in 1967, and Arnold
13:22Schwarzenegger in 2003.
13:26Both held court here in the statehouse for two four-year terms.
13:30When Schwarzenegger left office in 2011, California's economy was the ninth largest in the world,
13:37bigger even than Russia's.
13:39But the shining gold ball atop the Capitol's dome is a reminder of what first kicked off
13:44the state's economic boom.
13:46And how it got its nickname, the Golden State.
13:57California grew rapidly after statehood.
14:00In 1869, Sacramento became the endpoint of the nation's new transcontinental railroad,
14:07which finally knitted the nation together east to west for the first time.
14:12The days of settlers having to drive their wagon trains up and over the snowy Sierras
14:17were finally over.
14:21At the time, San Francisco was already a major port, but large ranches still covered much
14:28of the land around San Francisco Bay.
14:32It looked a lot like this region today, the stunning Mendocino Hills, north of San Francisco.
14:38This kind of landscape once covered much of the Bay Area.
14:42But over time, buildings rose, communities grew, and cities took hold.
14:51That's also how Silicon Valley got its start.
14:55In 1884, the former governor of California, Leland Stanford, and his wife Jane decided
15:03to found a university on a ranch they owned here, south of San Francisco.
15:07They did it to honor their young son, who had died from typhoid.
15:14Stanford University was finally ready to open its doors to students in 1891.
15:20The center of the campus is the quad, designed in the Romanesque style by architect H.H.
15:26Richardson.
15:27Leland Stanford also added elements used in Spanish missions, including red tile roofs
15:33and arched corridors.
15:34Together, they make the Stanford campus one of the most distinctive in the world.
15:40The school's iconic and more modern-looking Hoover Tower was named after President Herbert
15:45Hoover, who was a Stanford grad.
15:48So was quarterback John Elway and Sally Ride, the first American woman to enter space.
15:54The Hoover Tower is the glass and steel of the David Packard Building and adjacent Hewlett
15:58Teaching Center, funded by two Stanford graduates that tell the story of how this part of California
16:03became Silicon Valley.
16:06In 1939, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard formed a company to make audio equipment.
16:13A coin flip determined that the company name would start with Hewlett, not Packard.
16:18HP quickly grew.
16:20Soon, the area around Stanford became a hub of innovation, where scientists and engineers
16:26invented everything from transistor radios to semiconductors to microchips.
16:32In 1971, a journalist coined the term Silicon Valley to describe what was happening here.
16:39But it was in the 1990s that Silicon Valley's current tech boom really got started.
16:45In 1994, two Stanford graduate students formed Yahoo by creating what they called Jerry
16:51and David's Guide to the World Wide Web.
16:54And then in 1998, two other graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, created the search
16:59algorithm that would be the foundation of their new company, Google.
17:07Today, Google's headquarters is this vast campus known as the Googleplex.
17:13Back in 1998, when they were just getting started, Google's founders had their first
17:18office in a garage at this house in Menlo Park.
17:22They were following what's practically a Silicon Valley tradition.
17:26In the mid-1970s, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak also started off in a small house and garage
17:32of their own in Los Altos, where they built their first Apple computers.
17:37It's still owned by members of Jobs' family.
17:40Facebook is also now headquartered in Silicon Valley, but it wasn't started in a local garage.
17:45A few hackers at Harvard created Facebook in a dorm room and later moved to California
17:52to reap the rewards from all the tech talent and venture capital here.
18:00Evidence of just how much money there is here in this one corner of California is easy to
18:05spot from the air, in nearby Cupertino.
18:09This construction site will soon be the new Apple headquarters.
18:13It was designed by British star architect Norman Foster, who envisioned it as a giant
18:18solar-powered glass ring, with an elaborate park in the center.
18:24Due to open in 2016, it will house 13,000 employees and be about two-thirds the size
18:30of the Pentagon.
18:31Bloggers have dubbed it simply the Spaceship.
18:38Northern California is full of spectacles of human ingenuity, from the massive headquarters
18:43of its high-tech giants, to San Francisco's stunning skyline, from the cable cars that
18:50climb its hills, to the famous streets that wind right down them.
18:57But there's no man-made spectacle in Northern California as dramatic as this, the Golden
19:04Gate Bridge.
19:08Come late spring and summer, San Francisco's famous coastal cloud bank hangs over this
19:13engineering marvel, and the entrance to San Francisco Bay, like a blanket.
19:19The fog, known as a marine layer, starts offshore, and then is sucked into the bay by warmer
19:25air that rises over California's Central Valley.
19:30It turns the Golden Gate Bridge into one of the most dramatic sights in all of California,
19:36if not the nation.
19:38Back in 1579, Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman ever to sail up the California
19:44coast, missed the entrance to San Francisco Bay, probably because of a fog bank like this
19:50one.
19:53These days, clear mornings can be hard to find during San Francisco's summers.
19:59But often, in the middle of the day, the fog disappears, and the Golden Gate Bridge
20:04is as clear as day.
20:06And that makes the job of captains on giant container ships like this one a whole lot
20:11easier.
20:12All day, every day, these ships pass under the bridge on their way to and from the port
20:18of Oakland.
20:19On their way, they pass by Angel Island, the largest natural island in San Francisco Bay.
20:28Some have called it the Ellis Island of the West.
20:31Starting in 1910, thousands of immigrants from Asia were processed here.
20:36But unlike Ellis Island in New York Harbor, which welcomed immigrants from around the
20:40world, Angel Island was actually used to restrict their entry into the country.
20:47In 1882, the U.S. Congress, responding to large-scale unemployment at the time, passed
20:53the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese citizens from coming to America.
20:59It was later extended to cover those from other Asian countries.
21:04Angel Island soon came to be known as the Guardian of the Western Gate.
21:09A new immigration facility was built here, and was where many Chinese were held for days,
21:15weeks, and even months at a time in crowded conditions, before being either allowed in
21:20or deported back across the Pacific.
21:24Those harsh laws came to an end in 1943.
21:30Many of those detained on Angel Island probably felt like they'd been sent here, to California's
21:34most notorious prison, San Quentin, which lies within sight of Angel Island.
21:42It was built in 1852 to curb the lawlessness that arrived with the gold rush.
21:47Today, it's home to California's controversial new lethal injection death chamber, which
21:52was built under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at a cost of nearly $900,000.
21:58Since 1976, California has executed 13 death row inmates, 11 of those by lethal injection.
22:07But San Quentin is also famous for its sports.
22:10Once a year, players from the NBA's Golden State Warriors in Oakland come to San Quentin
22:15to face off on the court against a team made up of San Quentin inmates.
22:20Over the years, this facility has housed many of California's most notorious prisoners,
22:28from Charles Manson to country music great Merle Haggard.
22:33In 1957, when Haggard was 18, he was sent to San Quentin on a burglary charge.
22:40It was here where he saw Johnny Cash perform live, which he says inspired him to become
22:45a singer when he got out two years later.
22:49In 1968, Cash decided to record a live album at another California prison known as Folsom
22:55State, northeast of Sacramento.
22:58That album, called At Folsom Prison, went gold.
23:02It also turned Cash's song, Folsom Prison Blues, into a number one hit on the country
23:06music charts.
23:10It lies right at the base of the massive Folsom Dam, but prisoners are lucky if they
23:16get a glimpse of the waters of Folsom Lake or its sandy shores.
23:22This western region of northern California has some of the state's most iconic landscapes.
23:28The still waters of its Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, rows of crops that follow the delta's
23:33course, and even the brilliant blue waters of Lake Tahoe and its stunning Emerald Bay.
23:42From the air, the variety of California's landscapes appear to be endless.
23:47But sometimes, they are not quite what they seem.
23:52These colorful formations north of Sacramento are a perfect example.
24:02First, these formations in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains look like California's
24:07version of the Grand Canyon.
24:11It would be easy to imagine that wind, rain, and time were the sole forces that exposed
24:16these ancient layers of earth.
24:19But in fact, if nature had been able to work its wonders here, this landscape wouldn't
24:24exist at all.
24:27That's because these colorful hills were actually created by one of the most destructive industrial
24:32practices in the world.
24:34It's called hydraulic mining.
24:41When the gold of California's famous 1849 gold rush started to run out, miners began
24:47doing whatever they could to get the trace deposits that remained out of the mountains.
24:52The town of North Bloomfield is where many came to search for treasure.
24:57Miners from that time still stand here today, in what amounts now to a ghost town.
25:03The way miners here dug for gold was to funnel water from nearby streams and rivers into
25:08a web of pipes, and then direct powerful jets of water at the hillsides to wash away the
25:14earth and rock and reveal the gold.
25:18It was fast, but highly destructive, and turned this entire valley into a wasteland of mining
25:24pits.
25:25The site is known today as Malakoff Diggins.
25:30Equipment still litters the valley.
25:33Silt and tailings from hydraulic mining clogged streams, flooded towns and farms, and even
25:38turned San Francisco Bay muddy brown.
25:42In 1884, a judge ruled that the polluting of the waterways by hydraulic mining had to
25:47stop.
25:50It was one of the very first environmental laws ever passed in the nation, but more than
25:54a century and a half later, the natural landscape of Malakoff Diggins has yet to recover.
26:07In their relentless search for gold, and with an insatiable appetite to turn California's
26:12rich land into farms, miners and settlers began putting pressure on California's native
26:17tribes.
26:23One of those was the Modoc.
26:25Their tragic story came to a head here, in what's now known as the Lava Beds National
26:31Monument in Northern California.
26:34In 1873, the Modoc retreated here and used the tunnels in the lava to evade and attack
26:41the federal forces who were trying to force them onto a reservation in Oregon.
26:47They were so successful that for a while, 60 members of the tribe held off an assault
26:52by a federal force of 600.
26:56The area of lava beds where they hid is called Captain Jack's Stronghold, after the tribe's
27:01chief, Kintipus, better known as Captain Jack.
27:08In the spring of 1873, U.S. General Edward R. Canby arrived here to try and negotiate
27:13the Modoc's surrender.
27:16Captain Jack didn't trust the general, but still argued for peace.
27:21Other Modoc warriors outvoted him, and he ended up shooting Canby in the face and then
27:26slitting his throat.
27:29A cross to honor Canby now stands near the site where he died.
27:34On it are written the words, General Canby, USA, was murdered here by the Modocs, April
27:3911, 1873.
27:40He was the only general killed during the nation's Indian Wars.
27:46Not far away, members of the Modoc tribe have raised a medicine flag to honor their chief.
27:53Captain Jack was finally captured, tried, and hanged for killing Canby.
27:57He and two other Modoc warriors were the only Native Americans ever to be convicted as war
28:02criminals.
28:04To this day, many consider him a hero who defended his people in a time when the U.S.
28:09was forcing many tribes to give up vast stretches of their land for almost nothing at what amounted
28:14to gunpoint.
28:17After the events here, the surviving members of the tribe were sent to Oklahoma, where
28:22some of their descendants still live today.
28:26Meanwhile, immigrant settlers moved in and took control of Native American lands.
28:35They turned grasslands into fields and farms.
28:40California's Central Valley is a testament to those efforts.
28:44Within the state's mountain ranges is a vast prairie that stretches across an area 450
28:49miles long and up to 60 miles wide.
28:54Settlers began turning this Central Valley into what it is today, one of the most productive
28:58regions of the world, with its fields of asparagus, artichokes, almonds, apples, and much more.
29:07It's been called the land of a billion vegetables.
29:10Close to 25% of the nation's food comes from this one valley.
29:15In good years, the Central Valley's fields are fed with water from the surrounding mountains,
29:20including those of one of the valley's most successful crops, rice.
29:26Worldwide demand for rice has risen so fast that farmers can hardly keep up.
29:31That's one reason they seed their fields by playing.
29:35During April and May, California farmers north of Sacramento plant more rice using
29:40aircraft than any other place in the world.
29:44Swooping and circling, these daredevil pilots evoke the stunt circus flyers of the early
29:4920th century.
29:52Farmers have been seeding their fields with planes since the 1920s.
29:57It's not a job for the fate of heart.
30:02These fields may seem endless, but California's rice farmers know well that they can't take
30:07the water they get for granted.
30:09In fact, in 2014 alone, roughly $1.25 billion worth of rice won't be able to be planted
30:16due to California's drought.
30:19There's just not enough water to flood every field.
30:24California's 2013 drought was the worst in its history and turned many farms in the Central
30:29Valley into fields of dry dirt.
30:33Some farmers now rely on wells drilled directly into the aquifer below their farms since there's
30:39not enough supply from the surrounding mountains.
30:42Getting water to Central Valley farms and to homes and businesses across the state has
30:47been a problem for California for more than a century.
30:54In 1938, the federal government decided to try and solve the problem with an engineering
30:59marvel known as the Shasta Dam.
31:03In the U.S., it's second in size only to Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona border.
31:09It's one of many dams in what's called the Central Valley Project.
31:13Standing 602 feet tall on a base of concrete that's more than 800 feet thick, it holds
31:19back the waters of the Sacramento River in a giant reservoir called Shasta Lake.
31:26But this lake is not what it used to be.
31:29When water levels in the Sacramento River drop due to the drought, so too did the water
31:33in Shasta Lake, which is why its shore looks like a giant bathtub ring.
31:40Many other dams and reservoirs in the state have fared much worse.
31:47Rising high above the Shasta Dam is one of the most prized sites in Northern California.
31:53The snow-covered peak of Mount Shasta itself.
31:58It's the second highest mountain in the Cascades Range, after Washington State's Mount Rainier.
32:04It rises 14,000 feet above the plains.
32:10So much of the Northern California landscape stirs the imagination, whether it's snow-capped
32:17volcanic peaks, wild and rugged coastline, or even the wonder of its Central Valley.
32:28But nothing comes close to the experience of floating through a forest of ancient California
32:33redwoods, especially when the tops of the trees tower hundreds of feet over your head.
32:43Here in the Redwood National and State Parks, in California's northwest corner, streams
32:49wind through a primeval forest, where redwoods first took root thousands of years ago, and
32:55still reach skyward.
32:59No other living creature grows quite as tall as a redwood.
33:05One tree in this forest tops out at 380 feet, more than 70 feet higher than the Statue of
33:11Liberty.
33:13It's the tallest tree in the world, but its location is a well-guarded secret.
33:25Redwoods can survive for up to 2,000 years, and the trunks can reach 26 feet across, that
33:31is, if loggers don't get to them first.
33:35Centuries ago, towering redwood forests blanketed Northern California, but today, less than
33:415% of those original trees remain.
33:45The destruction of these soaring natural treasures began when gold-seekers arrived, and started
33:50cutting down redwood trees to build new homes and mills.
33:54One of the biggest logging companies was owned by a Canadian entrepreneur named William Carson,
33:59who arrived in 1852 with a team of oxen to start logging redwoods here.
34:07He shipped tens of thousands of feet of redwood lumber out of Humboldt Bay, near the coastal
34:11town of Eureka, to San Francisco and beyond.
34:16By 1884, Carson was a timber tycoon, and rich enough to build this enormous Queen Anne-style
34:22mansion in Eureka, designed by two famous San Francisco architects.
34:28It was built from, not surprisingly, redwood, and almost 100,000 feet of white mahogany
34:34he had shipped in from Central America.
34:37Today, it's the home of a private club.
34:45In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Redwood National Park into existence.
34:51Today, the National Park Service and the State of California oversee about 100,000 acres
34:57of redwood forests under protection.
35:00The Redwood State and National Parks lie in an area known as the Emerald Triangle.
35:06It covers the California counties of Trinity, Humboldt, and Mendocino.
35:11There are not many redwoods left in these hills, but there is plenty of cash, thanks
35:16to another modern-day gold rush, or as many call it, a green rush.
35:23Fly over just about any hill in the Emerald Triangle today, and you'll spot a greenhouse
35:28full of leafy green marijuana plants.
35:32Mendocino County is often called the marijuana capital of the nation.
35:36Grow houses are everywhere, and often, they're huge.
35:41People began coming to this part of California to grow marijuana in the 1960s.
35:46They sold their weed on the illegal market and lived quiet, laid-back lives.
35:51But now, there's a brash new generation of pot growers here.
35:57Locals complain that they're barging into the woods, cutting down too many trees, and
36:01destroying the ecosystem.
36:04A single pot plant can consume up to six gallons of water a day.
36:08Some growers are willing to do whatever it takes to keep their plants alive, whether
36:13it's drilling illegal wells or secretly tapping the local water supply.
36:18The state of California permits residents to grow marijuana for their own medicinal
36:22use, which is how most growers here justify what they're up to.
36:27But a single grow of just 20 plants can be worth up to $250,000 on the street, which
36:32is why drug cartels from Mexico and Russia are also operating here in the Emerald Triangle.
36:39But growing weed is still a federal crime, which is why many growers live in fear of
36:44DEA agents descending from the sky in helicopters, or that members of the cartels will raid their
36:50farms at gunpoint just before the harvest.
36:53Local authorities estimate that half the people in Mendocino County are employed by
36:57the weed industry.
37:02On the evening of October 17, 1989, more than 60,000 baseball fans were getting settled
37:08in at San Francisco's Candlestick Park and eagerly awaiting the first pitch of Game 3
37:14of the World Series.
37:16It was part of a Battle of the Bay, the famous rivalry of two Bay Area teams, the San Francisco
37:22Giants and the Oakland Athletics.
37:25But at 5.04 p.m., just a half hour before the game was scheduled to start, the stadium
37:31suddenly started to tremble.
37:34The upper deck of the stands began to sway, and the ball field itself rolled like an ocean.
37:40It was an earthquake that was centered south of San Francisco, under the Loma Prieta Peak
37:45of the Santa Cruz Mountains, located right on top of the San Andreas Fault.
37:51It sent shockwaves north and rocked the entire Bay Area for 15 seconds.
37:57The Loma Prieta quake registered 6.9 on the Richter scale and was the first earthquake
38:03to be broadcast on live television here at Candlestick Park.
38:08No one at the stadium was killed, but by the time the quake subsided, almost 4,000 people
38:14across the Bay Area had been injured.
38:1863 were dead.
38:23Out on the Bay Bridge, which links Oakland and San Francisco, a section of the upper
38:27roadway broke free and fell onto the deck below.
38:31One driver there died.
38:34Not far away, here in Oakland, an even greater roadway collapse caused many more fatalities.
38:40At the time, a multi-lane double-decker freeway, known as the Cypress Street Viaduct, ran right
38:45through this neighborhood of West Oakland.
38:48But when the quake hit, the top deck of the freeway collapsed, causing 42 fatalities.
38:55Today, the viaduct is gone, and the site is now a park, as a memorial to honor those who
39:02perished.
39:03The Loma Prieta quake was a wake-up call to officials that if another quake hit, much
39:09of Northern California's bridge and highway infrastructure wasn't ready.
39:16When the east span of the Bay Bridge was built in the 1930s, it was an engineering marvel
39:21for the time, the longest bridge of its kind in the world.
39:25But engineers knew that if another large quake hit, the Bay Bridge could suffer catastrophic
39:31failure.
39:32It ended up being a $6.4 billion problem.
39:37That's how much it cost to build a new, more earthquake-resistant bridge right next to
39:41the old one.
39:43Drivers were finally diverted onto its twin roadways on September 3, 2013, 24 years after
39:49the Loma Prieta quake rocked the San Francisco Bay Area.
39:53Today, its soaring 525-foot-high tower stands tall as an inspiring symbol of a region that
40:02took a shaking and got back up.
40:06One of the best ways to understand the terrifying power of the geological forces that exist
40:11under California is to travel north to a place known as Lassen Volcanic National Park.
40:19It was named after its dramatic centerpiece, a peak known as Mount Lassen.
40:25This stunning mountain formed more than 27,000 years ago.
40:30Until recently, in 1915, a giant eruption from Lassen sent a mushroom cloud five miles
40:36into the sky.
40:38Volcanic ash rained down across hundreds of square miles.
40:43It remains an active volcano, thanks to the hot, churning forces that are still at work
40:49deep below its peak.
40:54Evidence of those forces can still be seen on the mountain's southern flanks.
40:59When water from rain and melted snow trickles down into molten rock in the volcano's core,
41:05it heats up and shoots right back to the surface, creating features known as steam vents, thumping
41:11mud pots, and boiling pools.
41:14The steam in these vents can reach 322 degrees Fahrenheit.
41:18In the 1860s, a miner named Kendall Bumpus slipped into one of Lassen's boiling pools.
41:26He survived, but had to have his leg amputated.
41:30This area is now known as Bumpus Hell, as a warning to all to think twice about stepping
41:36off the walkway.
41:41Scientists believe that Lassen could erupt at any time.
41:45That's one reason geologists constantly monitor this volcano, so park rangers can work to
41:50get hikers like these off the mountain before it's too late.
41:56Over the last 300,000 years, there have been 30 different major eruptions in this volcanic
42:01region.
42:03These cataclysmic events have created some of the most impressive sights in all of Northern
42:08California.
42:10One of them is the beautifully smooth Cinder Cone.
42:15Multiple eruptions, dating to about 1650, created this 700-foot-high formation.
42:22As particles and blobs of lava spewed out of this giant vent, they formed into a cone.
42:29Then, rivers of lava flowed out from the base of the cone, creating an area that's now known
42:35as the Fantastic Lava Beds.
42:39Trying to cross this rugged landscape on foot is not for the faint-hearted, which is why
42:45the best way to experience this hardened river of magma is from the air.
42:52California's location on top of an active volcanic zone is one reason this state has
42:56so many dramatic landscapes, but it's also partly responsible for one of Northern California's
43:02most famous crops.
43:05Here in the Napa Valley, volcanic deposits in the soil have helped create the perfect
43:10chemistry for growing award-winning grapes.
43:15Settlers first grew wine grapes here as far back as 1839.
43:20By 1900, there were more than 1,400 vineyards in the Napa Valley alone.
43:25But by 1920, a microscopic insect that attacks the root of the plants wiped out nearly 80
43:31percent of Napa's vineyards.
43:33Then, Prohibition put them out of business entirely.
43:39After 1933, the vineyards started coming back.
43:42For years, the world dismissed California wines as second-rate.
43:48That changed after an aspiring vintner named James L. Barrett bought an old vineyard here,
43:53restored it, and began replanting grapes in 1972.
43:58Four years later, he dared to submit his Chardonnay to a blind taste test in Paris, France.
44:04The event was called the Judgment of Paris.
44:08Most of the judges were French, but when their blindfolds came off and their tallies were
44:12counted, Barrett's upstart California white wine made history.
44:17It beat out the French wines for first place.
44:20What was also amazing was that a red wine, a Cabernet from Napa's Stag's Leap Winery,
44:26was the favorite in its category, too.
44:29Wine experts were shocked.
44:31The French were enraged.
44:33Much of the French press even refused to report the story.
44:36But California vintners haven't looked back since.
44:39Today, there are more than 4,000 wineries in the state, and Americans now drink more
44:44than 650 million gallons of California wine a year.
44:48Some of it is even exported to France.
44:53The Napa Valley is just one small part of Northern California's rich history.
44:59A story driven by the hopeful spirit of its pioneers and their great discoveries, great
45:05tragedies, booms and busts.
45:08But through it all, the wonder of Northern California's landscape has endured.
45:13From the rugged wilderness of its lost tribes, across snow-capped mountains feared by early
45:19pioneers, to the tops of volcanic peaks that lure thrill-seekers today, it may now be the
45:26most populated state in the nation, but it also has the wildest coast in the West.
45:32There is simply nothing like Northern California.