With a shovel and a wetsuit, amateur gold digger Albert Fausel inspects a river after torrential rains drenched Northern California. The rainy winter, in a region affected by drought for two decades, revives the memory of a gold rush in the 19th and 20th centuries, which welcomed hundreds of miners in search of El Dorado. "The waters definitely helped move some new materials," says Fausel. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES ARRANGED IN SEQUENCES