Trail Guy and I parted ways at the junction. He wanted to go off-trail, and Prudence told me to stick to the trail. (I do best when I listen to her.) These are his photos from across the East Fork of the Kaweah, on the north-facing slopes of Farewell Canyon. Tomorrow I’ll show you photos […]
Hiking to the Flowers, Part 1
Trail Guy and I wanted to continue enjoying wildflowers at their peak, so we headed to the Franklin/Farewell Gap junction, 4 miles from the Mineral King Valley floor.
Secret Walk in Mineral King
I mentioned a friend in a recent post, someone I have mostly known through email correspondence. Last week she showed me a trail I have never heard of, and it seems to me that it might be very localized secret. So, out of respect for people’s privacy, I will simply show you photos but keep […]
A Long Walk in Mineral King, Part 4
Maybe today we will conclude our Mineral King hike among the wildflowers. I will cease referring to Trail Guy as Off-Trail Guy now, because we rejoined a trail. I wonder why this hike felt farther and more difficult than in my memory. The flowers were the best I’ve ever seen, so it was worth the […]
A Long Walk in Mineral King, Part 3
Are you all rested after the lunch break and ready to make like a cow-pie and hit the trail again? (Never mind. We weren’t on a trail yet.) After our lunch break among the yellow unknowns, we crossed a little spring or drainage, a wet place that I named Everything Spring. Every possible wildflower was […]
A Long Walk in Mineral King, Part 2
Today we continue our long walk, now above White Chief, heading through some of the finest flowers in memory. I’m not going to sugar-coat this hike. It was harder to get to the top of the ridge than I remember, not as hard to come down the other side, but then pretty hard to pick […]
A Long Walk in Mineral King, Part 1
Actually, it was a hike. We went to White Chief, over the ridge to the Farewell Gap drainage, down to the snow survey site, crossed the stream on a snowfield, found our way to the Farewell/Franklin Trail, and then 4 miles back to the cabin. This post is getting too long, kind of like the […]
Another Short Mineral King Walk
I have a friend with a Mineral King cabin. Although we have this in common, and that is how we met, our friendship has mostly grown through email. Recently our cabin times overlapped, and together we walked up to Crystal Creek, about a one mile walk on a fairly flat trail (that used to be […]
Short Mineral King Walk
There is a trail in Mineral King called “The Nature Trail”, a one mile route that connects Cold Springs Campground (near the Ranger Station) to the Mineral King valley itself. There was a meeting in the area near Cold Springs Campground, and I took the Zapato Express*, choosing to go down the trail instead of […]
Old Calendars
In 2012 I made my first calendar. It was an experiment, because a calendar has a short time to sell, and when it is over, a business is stuck with unsellable inventory. The calendar sold well enough, 100 turned out to be the right number, and I have continued making calendars ever since. When reviewing […]