Due to a late winter, increased family responsibilities, time at Hume Lake, and a Shaver Lake reunion, my visits to Mineral King have been fewer this summer than in previous years. Have a look at a recent visit, a non-hiking sort of look.
It is a remarkable year for water and for flowers. This area usually has Tiger (or Leopard) Lilies, but this year it has many other flowers as well.
In spite of having spots instead of stripes, these are more commonly called “Tiger” lilies than they are called “Leopard” lilies.
Yet another yellow flower that looks like many others, this one is Arrowroot Groundsel (and doesn’t appear in my book).
This blog post is sponsored by Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names.
And that’s all the advertising you will ever find on my blog. No pop-ups or moving little boxes to click shut. Ever. So there.
100 page paperback, flowers in photos, common names only, lots of chatty commentary, $20 including tax. Available here Also available at the Three Rivers Historical Museum, Silver City Store, from me if I put them in my car, or Amazon.
Does this title please you as much as it does me? Heheheh. (That’s me snickering).
After having a wonderful reunion with wonderful friends in a wonderful place (is Lawrence Welk around here somewhere??), I wanted to commemorate our time together. As a Central California artist, art seemed like the right choice.
(We went to Shaver Lake. I wrote about it on Tuesday.)
I painted 5 Little Shavers. See?
An easel adds cuteness and versatility.
2×2″ paintings won’t take up much space in people’s lives.
Our hostess got the big oil painting of Shaver Lake (can’t call that a “little shaver”.)
This is actually Tunnel Creek, which comes into Shaver Lake via a tunnel from Huntington Lake, I think. Hence, “Tunnel” Creek. We are clever like that here in California’s flyover country.
Did anyone notice that I didn’t learn anything in June? Actually, I did, but had so many other things to post about that I didn’t make my usual list, which means this month’s list is twice as long as usual.
Pippin learns he doesn’t like black coffee.
For the very first time in my life, I gave away a cat. Two, actually. I learned that it is a beautiful thing to share kitties with people who might love them even more than I do.
Arizona’s speed limit for trucks is the same as that for cars, and it makes for much smoother traffic on freeways. Only Delaware and California require trucks to go 55 mph.
I was wrong last year when I said that Manx is not a breed of cat but the accident of birth through malnourishment in the womb. (Did I get that info on the internet?? or in a book??) The veterinarian who made sure Scout doesn’t have another litter set me straight. Scout has a weird stump of a tail and received superior nutrition while growing her 5 babies, resulting in 2 with tails and 3 without.
No matter how often I try to understand, the meaning of “meta” eludes me. Do the people using this word just pretend that they know what they are saying, and do the people listening just pretend too?
You can buy hard-boiled eggs at Costco. I don’t belong to Costco, but thought it a curious fact when I overheard it this summer.
Getting cats “fixed”: we had Scout fixed and she disappeared 3 weeks later. I was wondering if we shouldn’t get Georgia “fixed” so she could make us more kittens, but now she is also gone. This is why I want to have lots of cats. We have a controversial approach to pets, but it is right for us.
Not all my friends are readers. (Why does this surprise me?) I was quite amazed to learn that 3 of the 7 friends who reunited at Shaver Lake don’t read much!
Shaver Lake is wonderful. I had never been there before although it is only 2-1/2 hours away from Three Rivers.
I was the only one of the Shaver Seven who doesn’t color her hair. (Why is this interesting to me? Who knows.) Maybe it is because I’d rather be reading.
You can accidentally grow pumpkins. I thought I was accidentally growing zucchini, because the blossoms look the same. Only one is becoming a pumpkin, but wow, the plants are going nuts. (Because they are accidental, they aren’t planted in gopher-proof cages, so I fear for them.)
Airdrop is a thing that can send pictures from an iPhone to another nearby Apple device. It makes a funny noise when the photos are sent. (I am learning how to use the dreaded cell phone bit by bit, in spite of zero reception at home.)
Branches on a tree make knots on firewood and look strange if you ever have the opportunity to view the inside of a hollow tree.
Many flowers have the unfortunate-sounding syllable “wort” in their names. Why? It comes from Old English “wyrt”, meaning root, herb, and plant.
Pumpkin vines look like zucchini plants. The disk keeps the critters from digging where I buried kitchen waste, and the kitchen waste is why I am accidentally growing pumpkins.
Does Tucker look capable of supervising three young feline hooligans?
He is very patient.
Georgia had such a pretty face, unlike Jackson’s, which is sort of pointy like a fox.
Jackson’s markings are very similar to Samson’s. They would have been cousins.
We crossed Spring Creek on the footbridge. It has a ton of water for the 2nd half of July!
How a knot looks from inside a hollow tree.
I split a lot of firewood, and have learned how to read the wood to work with the knots. Knots are just branches, but I have never seen inside a hollow tree before to see the entire branch, or what the end of a knot looks like.
This is Eagle Creek as it runs into the sink hole.
Water disappears into the Eagle sink hole, and we strongly suspect it is the source of Spring Creek.
This is one of my favorite sections of trail in all of Mineral King, EXCEPT the mosquitoes and biting flies are always horrible here. This is the area where hikers decide if they are heading to Eagle Lake or to Mosquito Lakes (there are five).
There were still patches of snow on July 21.
This is Eagle Meadow, and the flowers did not disappoint.
Jeffrey Shooting Stars grow in water (hence, the many mosquitoes).
There weren’t as many flowers as we expected along the trail, because it is still early-ish, due to the heavy winter and late spring.
I like the color combination of Indian Paintbrush with sage.
This flower seems to be everywhere except in my many wildflower books. This time I was determined to find it and I did! It is called a Stout-beaked Toothwort. (I am not making this up!) Really, People-Who-Name-Flowers, couldn’t you do better than this?
The Mariposa Lilies were thick, and the slopes looked polka-dotted with them.
Neither one of us is a fan of the upper part of the Eagle Lake trail, and it was a hot day, so we turned around and got home in time for lunch. Thus, I have called this a “walk” instead of a “hike” (although Trail Guy carried lunch, just in case.)
Seven women friends met for a long weekend at a Shaver Lake cabin. 6 of us went to Redwood High School; 1 went to Whitney (but we have forgiven her). 6 of us graduated in 1977; 1 graduated in 1976 (but we love having her with us). 5 are turning 60 this year; 2 turned 60 last year (but we were celebrating all our birthdays).
It was FANTASTIC! No more chatting, just some photos (but all the friends shall remain unseen and anonymous.
The cabin.
First view of the lake.
Wildflowers, new to me, not found in Mineral King.
Wild Rose, quite abundant around Shaver Lake (occasionally found in Mineral King.)
We had a day on the lake in a pontoon boat.
This is Tunnel Creek, one of the main ways that Shaver Lake is supplied with water (through pipes from Huntington Lake, I think).
Sometimes other boats made waves.
There were many penstemon in my favorite wildflower color.
We bushwhacked to get to this waterfall, which was spectacular.
We smelled this wild azalea before seeing it. It seemed different and definitely more fragrant than the ones I saw at Hume Lake. Maybe the ones at Hume had all their scent sniffed right out of them because it has 1000s more visitors than our weird little non-trail.
Another mystery flower, growing in the water at the falls.
This has been a summer of reunions at mountain lakes in the Sierra for me. When I am somewhere else, I am not in Mineral King. (Thank you, Captain Obvious.) I know that many of my blog readers only care about Mineral King, so today’s post will be photos by Trail Guy, taken while I was at another lake (not Hume. . . might show you where next week, unless my readership drops to zero because I posted about a mountain place that isn’t Mineral King.)
This is not Soda Springs, but it is an iron spring just like it.
This is an artifact, a “leverite”, as in “leave ‘er right where you found ‘er”.
Trail Guy misses the cats while he is up the hill.
Tucker likes to lean over the branch and play with his tail.
Pippin, Georgia, and Jackson enjoying the morning sun on the front porch.
Great job on the photos, Trail Guy! Thank you for keeping my blog readers interested.
Say what? “Hume Lake wildflowers”, I said! It is still the Sierra, and I love wildflowers, as you know. And sometimes I go to the mountains in places that aren’t Mineral King. It’s permissible.
I stayed with my old friend at her cabin. It was charming, and it has electricity and even a teevee with a DVD player! There are 2 cabins nearby where her cousins are, including my new friends from Georgia. But I came here to tell you about wildflowers today.
There were many wild iris. (Mineral King only has them in one spot, a place I am not telling anyone about, which you would know if you have read Mineral King Wildflowers.)
This variety of penstemon is in my top 10 of wildflower favorites.
WHAT IS THIS???
There we were, just walking along a road above Hume Lake, when I almost got whiplash, or flew over the handlebars, or went a little nutso. Lots of Mariposa Lilies, and then BOOM!
RED MARIPOSA LILIES!! NEVER HEARD OF THEM BEFORE, NEVER SEEN THEM, NEVER WILL FORGET THIS!
That was completely thrilling! The Mariposa Lily that I know is on the title page of the white chapter in my book. When I got home to my books, I found 2 mentions of a different type of Mariposa Lily that occasionally comes in red or purple, but no photos, and I had to read to the bottom of a couple of boring descriptions to find them. (I hope my book isn’t boring to you.)
100 page paperback, flowers in photos, common names only, lots of chatty commentary, $20 including tax. Available here Also available at the Three Rivers Historical Museum, Silver City Store, from me if I put them in my car, or Amazon.
What is going on? At the end of June, I hadn’t been to Mineral King, but I did visit Hume Lake. This has become a tradition with a friend of mine from childhood. (“Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other PLATINUM!)
This is the now historic dam that forms Hume Lake, built for harvesting timber, for the lumber industry, a vital piece of our world, and thankfully, a renewable resource.
There is a fantastic view of the high country of Kings Canyon National Park across the lake.
The wild azalea were in bloom while I was there. We don’t have those in Mineral King.
In case you were wondering if I just paint and paint and paint, creating large stacks of paintings to be stored, today I am here to reassure you that my paintings do sell. (Thank you for your kind concerns.)
Have a look at recently sold paintings. Due to an onslaught of laziness brought on by summer heat, this will be pictures only, without sizes, titles, or prices.
