DCHP-1 Online
gulch † [prob. < Brit. dial. gulch, gulsh, drink noisily; of land, sink in] 
1 n. a ravine or large gully in a hillside, especially one flooded by freshets. Older, gulsh.
- 1835 (1836) I was put across La Hune Bay in a boat, and walked about two miles, across some mountainous ridges, in the "gulshes," between which the hardened snow was still thirty or forty feet high, to Western Cul de Sac.
- 1860 As yet, the wolves and cayotes howl their dreary requiems around its vast solitude, while an occasional grizzly comes out from his lair to see if the white man has yet invaded his favorite gulch.
- 1934 More sandy hillocks and we enter a gulch. "This is 'Smoky Hut Gulch'," the Superintendent says.
- 1963 Then we come to a series of grass benches cut by coulees (called gulches in this province [B.C.]). . . .
- 1965 According to one story, a party of [Ontario] trailbuilders came to a gulch with steep limestone cliffs surrounding it and saw a bearded fellow hoeing a garden beside a shanty below.
2 n. a gully in which placer gold has been found.
- 1859 Men have arrived at Lytton from Alexander, who state positively they can make fifty dollars per day, to the hand, anywhere--that the diggings are extensive, and that all the gulches and ravines are rich with gold.
- 1877 John Glen calculated . . . that he might strike a new bar or gulch that would pan out as richly as Williams' Creek, Cariboo. . . .
- 1924 [He] could wait until he learned what "richer than gold" was being gleaned up the gulch.
- 1835 (1836) I was put across La Hune Bay in a boat, and walked about two miles, across some mountainous ridges, in the "gulshes," between which the hardened snow was still thirty or forty feet high, to Western Cul de Sac.