Final Mineral King Walk of 2025

We went walking up the Mineral King valley in search of brilliant fall color. This was easy to find, so many yellows, but of course we wanted oranges and reds too.

The cottonwoods are yellow; it is the aspen which turn orange and red, so for stronger colors one must walk farther up the trail than rather just hanging out near the pack station.

We call this the Yellow Tunnel.
The cottonwoods look so faded when viewed from the other side.
Crystal Creek is still flowing. The colors are very subtle looking up the ravine.

We spotted some orange through the cottonwoods, so Hiking Buddy and I continued on up the trail while the men turned back to begin tackling the chores of cabin closing. Not only do they close our cabins, they also close cabins for neighbors and are responsible for the water system for our little neighborhood, which they take very seriously.

That orange turned out to be a little disappointing. It was only the very edges of these few trees. (You might have to squint to see it here.)

But these trees were electric!

Franklin Creek was so tame, especially compared to my August adventure with K.

Each year in the fall I am determined to learn what shrub turns red. In the summer when it is green, I don’t notice it and don’t remember my annual autumnal intention.

Somewhere over there is where K and I were scrambling through the rain, cold, and hail to find our way home. We knew where we were going but not our exact route.

One last look at the Park’s packing shed.

WHAT? How did I miss this piece of brilliant advice all summer??

What I want to know is this: will a bear leave if I simply shout “BEAT IT, BOZO!” or do I have to say “GET OUT OF HERE BEAR!”? Who taught the bears to obey this command?

The next day was closing day. It was very cold, low 40s while we completed our chores and buttoned it all up for the season.

This is how it looked back toward Mineral King from partway down the road. Snow was expected up there. We closed in the nick of time. (Who is this “nick”?

Just for fun, this is the scenic spot where we stopped for some lunch on the way home.

It is always a bittersweet time. While we believe that summer goes way too fast, it is always a relief to be home, to stop driving that wretched road, to be able to go to church on the weekends, to keep up with emails and texts, to not be continually living in flux with duffle bags in plain sight, and to not worry/wonder about the water system or bear break-ins (in both locations.) Besides, we miss our cats.

Mineral King’s Nature Trail

If you read my posts last week, you saw the variety of fall color in Mineral King from year to year. This week I will show you all 2025, mid-October. Not much chit-chat, just some photos. Today is a walk up the Nature Trail, which originates at the upper end of Cold Springs campground.

The trees weren’t all brilliant yellow, but it was a brilliant clear sunny afternoon.

I don’t know what this shrub/tree is nor if the berries are edible. This is the only place I’ve ever noticed this in Mineral King. This just in: Greene’s Mountain Ash—THANK YOU, GC AND PICTURETHIS!

Happy Birthday, JC! (I’m still older than you.)

Closing Weekend in Mineral King

To clarify, Mineral King is still open to the public, officially closing in another week (sorry, don’t know the actual date). Trail Guy and I closed our cabin over the weekend, and just in time too. This week will be full of catching up at home and in the studio, so I’ll just fill this week of posts with Mineral King photos and chit-chat.

Heading up the hill, I did a quick drive-by of looking upstream from the Oak Grove Bridge. Supposedly this fall is when the county will begin tearing up the landscape upstream to prepare the way for a new bridge. The old one will become a pedestrian bridge only, not that there is any place to walk on the road. It just happens to be a beautiful historical structure in Tulare County, which doesn’t have very many of those.

How it looked on Friday, just aiming upstream into the sun. Next time we drive over it on the way up the hill (unless we make an unplanned trip) this will be all torn up.

We passed these types of scenic views on the way up. The road construction continues through the fall, and I don’t know when they’ll finish this year. The project is supposed to last through 2027.

Because of the fires in 2020, 2021, and 2024, there are clear views to Sawtooth (unless it is cloudy or smoky or smoggy or. . . )

Trail Guy and the Farmer stopped at the cabin owners’ dumpster to see if it was full. Hiking Buddy and I opted to walk up the Nature Trail to our cabins. (What? Would you rather hang around the dumpster, discussing its capacity, waiting for the dudes to make a decision and then have a ride up the final mile?)

More on fall color along the Nature Trail tomorrow.

More Mineral King in October

The photos from Friday and these photos today were all taken within the first 2 weeks of October each year. I just arbitrarily grabbed different ones from my very extensive photo collection (34,000? maybe 36,000 now?) so you can see the variety from year to year.

I did not choose my very best or think about an equal distribution of scenes. Instead, this is just a random selection to give you a sense of the inconsistency from autumn to autumn.

2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024 (after the fire – we were evacuated on Labor Day)

2025 fall photos will come later this week.

Mineral King in October

I stayed home last weekend. Our cabin is a summer residence in a summer place, and I am very ready to be home for awhile. So, I went through my photo archives, and today’s post will be random October photos of Mineral King from past years.

2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012

That was interesting. Let’s do a few more next week.

Sold in Summer—Oil Paintings

These “Sold” posts are mostly to reassure myself that I’m not just drawing and painting for the fun of it. They serve a secondary purpose in reminding my tens of readers that I accept commissions (lest you think I am a prima donna who only creates what I “feel like” creating) and that I do sell my work (lest you think I just prefer to cover my walls with my own art.)

I distorted the proportions of West Florence and Vandever in this painting. I hope someone from far away bought it so that they don’t notice my “artistic license”.

Most of these sold at the Silver City Store, four miles below Mineral King. The sequoia paintings mostly sold at both of the stores which sell for me in Three Rivers (Kaweah Arts and Stem & Stone). One sequoia painting was a commissioned piece for a long time friend and customer, and another was to some new friends/customers.

If it weren’t for all those folks passing through town on their way to Sequoia National Park, I’d be sure that only my friends and relatives buy from me. It is thrilling when a stranger likes my art enough to part with their hard-earned pieces of green paper with dead presidents’ faces on them.

Tomorrow I’ll show you all the pencil drawings that sold. You’ve seen most of them already, so it will be reruns for you.

Random Thoughts on a Mineral King September Weekend

The weekend began with a surprise visit by a childhood friend. I knew she might be coming in the fall, but so many people tell me their potential visit dates that I don’t even try to keep track. That meant it was a wonderful surprise, and I got to spend an hour or so with her and her offspring. Since this is the World Wide Web, and because I want to experience and value life even when it isn’t documented and publicized, I took no photos (except for asking her daughter to take one of us together, which I HOPE her mom will send to me!)

The road construction continues. We waited just below Wolverton Point for about 45 minutes for the 10 o’clock pilot car shuttle which we followed to Silver City. SEE THE NEW SCHEDULE BELOW.

A neighboring cabin had 8-10 hazard trees threatening their place. We went snooping, and all is safe now (but the cabin is exposed), and there is a boatload of downed wood, a real mess. Here is how part of it looked as drawn for The Cabins of Mineral King and how it looks now in real life.

It rained several times and was overcast. We did not hike. People who live in Mineral King just hang out sometimes. Instead of being on vacation, we are simply experiencing cabin life.

We thoroughly enjoyed the warmth from the wood stove, trying but not succeeding to keep a fire going all day. That stove wants feeding fairly often. I would have split more wood, but we kept covering the woodstack due to the rain.

We walked to the pack station and found an enormous tarp all wadded up, and the stock was gone. Couldn’t just waste that tarp, because chances are we paid for it with our tax dollars. So we folded it up and then put it in the storage container.

I saw this trimmed mule hoof on the ground, and the snow stake is now installed for viewing on the winter webcam.

Berries are ripe in the fall. Don’t eat the white ones. Trail Guy loves the red ones, Wax Currant.

There is a specific type of mistletoe which grows in red fir trees. It is weird stuff.

Look at these two huge chunks of the red fir that got dropped a few weeks ago. They got randomly placed in our neighborhood after being moved from the road. One has a thing attached that had something to do with phone lines. I didn’t photograph the messes from the dropped trees, but know I will be dragging brush and sawing limbs for a long time coming.

Now, the funnest of the fun things: I FINALLY* met Kevin Alltucker, author of The Mules of Mineral King, a book that I told you about back in August. He graciously accepted a gift of my Wilsonia book, and then his brother said that he (the brother) is one of my tens of blog readers. This gave me the idea to do this dorky photo (me dorky-looking, clearly too thrilled to think about posing better or controlling my grin) and remind you all who like Mineral King to BUY THE BOOK! It is so well-written. It was also fun to talk about the logistics of writing, publishing and (not) marketing one’s own books with a fellow self-published author.

The Mules of Mineral King is available through Riverfeet Press, (also at that big online store which begins with A and takes a large bite out of an author’s profits.)

ROAD SCHEDULE
  • ”FINALLY” because I know so many of his family members.

September in Mineral King

A recent weekend in Mineral King in photos with commentary, as usual, from your Central California artist.

The hazard tree crew returned to our neighborhood.

We had rain, both up and down the hill. It was overcast for a day or so after the rain. I wonder if this would make a good pencil drawing.

The classic view from the bridge, with Farewell Gap obstructed by the clouds.

The sun shone the next day, so Hiking Buddy, K, and I walked to Soda Springs.

Crystal Creek is still running.

See the orange? That’s where Soda Springs runs down into the creek.

It bubbles out of the ground.

Many cabin folks have a tradition of adding lemonade powder to the water, swearing that it is fizzy and delicious. It tastes like metal to me, reminding me of the drinking fountains at church camp as a kid. Ick, no thanks. K is very traditional, complete with a Sierra cup hanging on her daypack.

Here is the classic view in sunshine.

On the drive home, we were amazed by the ENORMOUS pile of road base collecting at Lookout Point for the ongoing road construction project.

Finally, here are The Potholes, still running steady and strong in September. My theory is that all the trees which used to take up water above this stream (called Squirrel Creek) burned up, so there is more water to continue flowing throughout the season.

And thus we conclude another tour of Mineral King. I’ll get back to work next week.

A Few Mineral King Sights

Labor Day weekend was a great time to just hang out with neighbors. We had dinners together, hiked together, did projects together, and just enjoyed these multi-generational friendships. Since I try to protect privacy on the World Wide Web, I’ll only show you photos that don’t include people.

Hmmm, a taco truck in the parking lot?

The Park’s stock almost always has one or two head outside the corrals. Since they aren’t worried about it, we don’t worry about it either.

Sunlight through the manzanita along a trail just stopped me in my steps due to the intensity of the greens and the light. It’s always the light.

I’m always thankful for the Spring Creek footbridge and the steady flow of water there. This was the first flowing water I drew in pencil (obviously earlier in the season), and it was so difficult that I titled it “Hard Water”.

Currants are ripe at the end of summer. There are two types: wax currant—no thorns, Trail Guy thinks they taste like cinnamon, and I tried unsuccessfully to turn them into juice for jelly making a few years ago; Sierra currant—thorns, and much stronger flavor with both tartness and sweetness.

Coneflowers bloom toward the end of summer, and there are two places where I count on seeing them. This year was not a disappointment!

If you squint, you can sort of see the remaining snow on Bearskin, the bowl on the right side of Vandever, the peak on the right side of Farewell Gap. I don’t think it will last until the first snow, but most folks in my circle think it will.

It may be a week or two before I make it back up the hill. The road construction schedule is now more disruptive, (schedule available here) and although the cabin isn’t closed, we are entering a season with more interruptions and responsibilities than during summer. Okay, maybe we just ignored some things, and now it is time to face the music. Sigh.