Walking Down the Mineral King Road and Up the Nature Trail

Gird your loins—this is a long post.

With my new-to-me iPhone 14 in hand, I walked down the Mineral King Road to Cold Springs Campground (STILL CLOSED—CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN OR SOMETHING!) and back up the Nature Trail. This is about 2-1/2 miles total.

Let’s look at the flowers I found along the road. I actually did this route on two consecutive days and was very surprised by how many flowers vanished and new ones appeared in just 24 hours.

From left to right: mariposa lily—a ruffled variety I’ve never seen before; angelica (not to be confused with cow parsnip because angelica has lacy leaves); buckthorn

This view at the top of Endurance Grade always grabs me. Endurance Hill. Coral Hill. Whatevs. It photographs much better with the phone than it ever did with the camera, as much as it pains me to admit.

Most people prefer the view of Sawtooth. Sawtooth isn’t my favorite, but I paint it over and over because most people like it—they haven’t been medivacked off it*.

I love penstemon, particularly this variety. The color just slays me. Maybe I should learn the actual variety name.

A little past the ranger station, we cross the neglected bridge into the closed (WHY?) Cold Springs Campground. (It’s kind of fun to flick off the flaking paint. No, I am NOT telling you to do that! Why would I tell you to do that? Do you think I’m immature or something?)

Here are some yellow flowers on the other side of the bridge: seepspring monkey flower and false lily of the valley.

At the upper end of the closed (WHY?) Cold Springs campground is where the trail begins. It used to have lots of interesting and helpful signs along the trail. The Park removed them all with the plan of upgrading them, but it has been about 10 years so I don’t think it is a priority. (The Park will say, “Hiring freezes! Understaffed!” to which I have many opinions which I will keep to myself in order to keep the tone of my blog elevated.)

At least the beginning of the trail has a nice sign.

This is a Jeffrey pine, which used to have a sign explaining how to tell the difference between Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines and inviting you to sniff the tree, because Jeffreys smell a tad like vanilla.

Aspens are thick along the trail.

Can you see the trail? It’s definitely overgrown. Last week we saw a trail crew guy and I asked if I could prune it for them. He actually said, “If you want to!”

Blog Reader and Top Commenter Sharon calls this “Iron Falls”.

I finally remembered to put a dime in my pocket so that you can see the scale of wildflowers. I didn’t take into account how: A. difficult it is to photograph the 2 side-by-side with only 2 hands; B. to keep my hideous thumbnail out of the photo (yea for cropping); C. to make the phone focus on the blossom instead of the leaves; D. to actually see the screen. Maybe you are supposed to tap the bloom on the screen, but already being shorthanded, this is beyond my capability.

The little footbridge got rebuilt last summer, or maybe the one before. It all runs together.

More Sawtooth

And just in case you are into Sawtooth (Hi, Kathy Wolfe!), here it is one more time, peeking around the ridge, before the phone battery died**.

OIL PAINTINGS OF SAWTOOTH

WAIT! THIS IS A BUSINESS WEBSITE! Here are some oil paintings of Sawtooth available this summer at the Silver City Store (unless they have sold already.)

Sawtooth #67, 8×10”, oil on wrapped canvas, $165
Sawtooth # 68, 6×6”, oil on wrapped canvas, $75
Sawtooth #69, 8×8”, oil on wrapped canvas, $145

*It was 50 years last week so you’d think I’d be over it. I am, but it still isn’t my favorite. So there.

**This is the biggest disadvantage of using a phone instead of a camera. I also bought a charger, but it only works when it feels like it. The frustrations of tech are endless.

Walking to Crystal Creek in MIneral King

The Crystal Creek crossing is about 1 mile from the parking lot at the end of the road in Mineral King. It is relatively flat and easy. We don’t even pretend that it is a hike and it barely passes for exercise. But recently I’ve been thinking that as one ages, one’s body produces and contains progressively more discomfort. Since to hike is to be uncomfortable, one becomes less inclined to add to the discomfort by forcing oneself out onto trails of great steepness and altitude gain. (I AM SICK RIGHT NIGH UNTO DEATH OF THIS STUPID PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY!)

Ahem. Excuse me for shouting. Let’s take a nice little gentle walk to Crystal Creek.

First, we cross the bridge and admire the classic view of Farewell Gap and the Crowley Family cabin.

Then we head up the road on the left side of the creek which leads to the pack station. The road turns into a trail after the pack station, SO DON’T BRING YOUR DOG.

There were a ton of flowers, and I experimented with the iPhone 14 as a camera with mixed results. All but one of these are dandelions, which are a wildflower in MIneral King, but a weed in your yard. The other is one of many unknowns in my personal wildflower index.

The trail passes through the green tunnel.*

Hey, a non-yellow flower! I’ve always thought these are whorled penstemon, but many books are calling them “small flowered penstemon”. I think “whorled” has a specific botanical definition, but I’m ignorant of it.

Here is the wide and shallow Crystal Creek. (That is kind of like Facebook, but it might be much wider and even more shallow.)

The views back down the trail:

Yea! More colors!

This summer is showing promise of being a terrific one for wildflowers. Everything seems to be about 2 weeks earlier than normal.

Tomorrow: The Nature Trail

*Remember this painting? I feel compelled to show you because this blog is supposed to be a business venture. Yes, it is the yellow tunnel here. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

While I am advertising, this painting might still be for sale at the Silver City Store.

Timber Gap with Bigelow Sneezeweed, 8×8”, oil on wrapped canvas, $145

Cabin Life

I misled you yesterday when saying we’d visit my short wussy walks in Mineral King. Instead today’s topic is Cabin Life: what in the world does one do in a place with no electricity, internet, or phones?

These are the photographical items on the agenda:

  1. Enjoy the views.

2. Help people hold down their porches.

3. Go exploring for things not noticed before, like these 5 trees growing off one downed tree.

4. Split wood (I’m downright scary with an axe.)

5. Test out a new method to oil the cabin. Looks as if nothing happened here; should have taken an “After” picture.

6. Dig through books trying to identify wildflowers.

7. Clean up messes from dropped trees. This is a giant long project.

8. Examine plants that are growing, with cautious victory dances that some transplanting may have FINALLY taken hold.

9. Spy on kids climbing The Big Rock, thinking how cool it is that kids still know how to play without screens (and then discover that they were inventing a way to get a tablet to the top of the rock.)

Non-photographical activities

We also listen to a lot of country music and try to guess the singers, read, and I knit. Trail Guy naps when he isn’t fixing things at other people’s cabins. (“Hey Mike, could you look at my fridge/oven/toilet/faucet/shower/water heater?” This is endless.) We hang out with neighbors, help strangers figure out appropriate hikes or walks, visit with people that we can’t avoid, and sometimes we hide from all the social activities.

And of course, we hike and walk. Hiking is when you carry a pack with water and lunch; walking is when you don’t have to carry all that stuff (but you can if you want—I rarely do.)

Next: Walking to Crystal Creek

Trail Guy Went to Timber Gap (in Mineral King)

Where is Timber Gap? It’s on the north side of the Mineral King Valley.

A “gap” is a low spot on a ridge or between peaks where it is natural to cross over to the other side. I suppose it is synonymous with “pass”, but in Mineral King we call them “gaps”: Tar Gap, Timber Gap, Farewell Gap. (We also have passes, but that is not today’s topic.)

Notice that Trail Guy’s photos no longer have spots in the sky. I passed my camera to him since I have graduated to an iPhone 14 in hopes that it will suffice as a camera. (Charging the battery is the current obstacle to the success of this new photographic approach but that isn’t today’s topic either.)

These are views from the trail.

In case you were wondering, it is about 2 miles to the gap. I don’t know the elevation: either 9400 or 9600’. (Do your own math from the valley floor at 7800’ if you like those types of facts.) Trail Guy counted 17 downed trees across the trail, which he went around, over, and one time, underneath.

Here is the same photo but this time the starting place in the Mineral King valley is circled for you.

Because I am still teaching drawing lessons in June, Trail Guy gets more time up the hill than I do in early summer. I think my numb feet will still allow me to do some hiking, nothing too tough, but more will be revealed as the summer unfolds…

Meanwhile, I continue to take my wussy walks to Crystal Creek or down the road and up the Nature Trail. We’ll visit that topic tomorrow.

Trail Guy Went to White Chief

Look at the fancy road! (For my far-away readers, that’s Sawtooth in the distance.)

Trail Guy, being retired, spends more time in The Land of No Electricity, Internet, or Phones (unless one has StarLink, which your Central Calif. Artist does not—surprised by this?) than I do. He actually had time to hike, working around all his obligations/helpfulness to neighbors.

You can tell he took these photos by the spots in the upper right of many of them.

White Chief peak has a flat top.
There is a pond, if you know how to find it. (It’s there even if you don’t know how to find it.)
Everyone’s favorite juniper tree.

When I made it up the hill, I spent some time contemplating wildflowers. A plan is beginning to formulate, but it isn’t ready for public consumption just yet.

Thus we conclude another photo tour of Mineral King.

Clear and Cold in Mineral King

When the fog cleared off, the sun began its work of melting snow. It was a time of much wood-splitting, wood burning, friendship, marveling at the clarity and brilliance, puttering, walks, and for Trail Guy and the Farmer, a time of making sure none of our immediate neighboring cabins had broken pipes from the cold. (A friend one mile down the road didn’t have water from when the snow first fell earlier in the week until he left on Sunday, but nothing was broken, only frozen.)

Okay, enough chitchat. Have a look, first at the changing light on the Crowley Family cabin and Farewell Gap, and then photos in no particular order.

This is Empire, not Sawtooth, in case you only somewhat familiar with Mineral King.

(That last photo is Sawtooth.)

Snow in Mineral King

As we left Silver City, the snow along the road made it apparent that it was going to be a bit dicey at the cabin, another 1000 feet or so above Silver City’s elevation.

There was a bit of a sunny window as we got near the valley, allowing a view of Sawtooth.

Oh-oh. Where is the snow shovel? Yeppers, I shoveled snow at the end of May!

The sun disappeared, and it got cold and foggy. Here are a couple of neighboring cabins.

I flipped over a bench on the porch so I could shovel better and was amused to see icicles hanging off the side.

Our neighbors had us over for dinner (no, they didn’t HAVE us for dinner—we all HAD pizza), and it remained foggy and very cold all evening. They have a top-notch wood stove, so we were very cozy inside.

Fog and cold continued the following day, when I went to another neighbor’s cabin to give a drawing lesson. That’s work that I love doing, and although we struggled a bit with being able to see via propane lamp, we made progress.

The following afternoon was sunny, so we continued our lessons on their deck. We opted for being a bit chilly in order to see.

The clouds came and went, and at one point while my student was trying out techniques, I was suddenly overcome by a need to photograph this window to draw sometime down the road. Literally down the road, because I might be drawing it at my studio, which has that magnificent drafting table and magnifying light.

Tomorrow I will show you how beautiful it all was when the sun came out for the rest of the cold weekend.

Business in the Mountains

The Silver City Store sold two Mineral King oil paintings on opening weekend; a few days later they sold a sequoia tree painted on a wood panel.

Luckily for a future customer, I had one more ready to go. So, on the way up the hill last week, we stopped by to deliver it. While there, I took a few more interior photos. The store is good to me*, and I happily advertise for them.

This year I have brought a few pencil reproduction prints of appropriate subjects. It’s been awhile since those were on public view.
Sawtooth on the sawblade is not for sale.
I designed this logo several decades ago and they are still using it. One of the original mugs (doesn’t say “Mountain Resort”) is on my drawing table with colored pencils in it.
Terrible light, but I wanted to show you the no-longer-functional gas pump and the snow outside.

There was quite a bit of snow in Mineral King when we arrived. Tomorrow’s post will be about that, accelerated to Thursday, because there are too many photos of Mineral King to just confine the topic to Friday’s post.

*Not the actual store, but you know what I mean.

Opening Weekend in Mineral King

This post will be photo heavy, with some captions for clarity, since a few folks among my tens of readers have never been to Mineral King. (It’s a special part of Sequoia National Park accessed by its own road.)

Farewell Gap
Iconic view from the bridge of Farewell Gap, the east fork of the Kaweah River, with the Crowley family cabin.
Timber Gap. You can get to the main part of Sequoia by a very long walk over Timber Gap.
A tree across the Franklin/Farewell trail about 1/2 mile below Crystal Creek.
Pussy paws
Languid Ladies AKA Sierra Bluebells
Western Wallflower
No idea
Dandelions
Rock outcropping of Empire (not the highest part where the mines are) with Monarch/Black Wolf falls

Cold Springs Campground is closed for an undisclosed reason (hazard trees?) but you can walk through on your way to the Nature Trail. The bridge desperately needs painting, but your park entrance fees and wilderness permits and other tax dollars are going to other needs things.

Iron Falls is Reader Sharon’s name for this section of river along the Nature Trail.
Violets
How is it that Trail Guy and I have never noticed this square nail embedded in the road before?
A cabin neighbor is burning yard rakings while cooking something in a black pot alongside the fire. Most cabin folks fly their flags when in occupancy.
Sawtooth Peak
Sierra Currants in bloom
The other kind of currants
Franklin/Farewell trail. The main peak is Vandever, on the right side of Farewell Gap.
Crystal Creek spreads wide across the trail.

It was a weekend of catching up with old friends, splitting wood, taking walks, reading, knitting, and eating. So many people brought us food: focaccia, pizza, dark chocolate (my vice), wine (someone else’s vice), carrot cake… never mind watching the blood glucose when surrounded by generous friends!

Western Tanagers show up in early summer. They flit around so much that Trail Guy did well to get this blurry photo with his red head turning.

The Road

The lower 8 miles of county road is worse than ever, thanks to the heavy trucks and equipment working on the park section. The next 10 miles are utter perfection—thought I was on the wrong road, or perhaps dreaming. It reverts to mess briefly right below Slapjack, and again around Redwood Canyon. I think the new pavement stops above Redwood, but since it was in fits and starts for awhile, I lost track. The upper dirt sections have a new layer of roadbase, which has been graded. However, it won’t take long until those sections deteriorate into corduroy. Those sections extend a mile above Silver City, and then the road becomes its old familiar mess of ruts, potholes, dirt, rocks, etc. Just go slowly and your car will be fine. (Fernando would love the new road. Sob.)

Selling at Silver City

Silver City Store, as it looked in 1985, painted in 2018 as a commissioned oil painting. (The original pencil drawing is in a frame and as such, won’t scan properly).

Over the weekend, I took all my Mineral King themed paintings to the Silver City Store, which is where I worked in 1985 when I met Trail Guy and changed the entire direction of my life (from meandering and going nowhere to based around Mineral King.)

Sawtooth on a saw blade was commissioned by the resort and belongs to them —not for sale.

The first time I sold my art in a store was the summer of 1986, when I had prints made of my drawing of the Silver City Store. Now it is called Silver City Resort and it is much fancier.

Usually I take 6-10 paintings and some notecards to the store at the beginning of the season, and then restock throughout the summer. This year I decided to take everything all at once.

Manager Molly was very gracious in helping me fit things in. We pulled nails, pounded new ones, and scooted lots of things closer together. They have more merchandise than ever before—if you like to shop, you will definitely enjoy the store this year.

When it was all in place, I pulled out my little Canon Elph camera, and the battery was dead. I didn’t have the inferior phone camera with me, because there is no reason to take it up the hill.

So on the way home, we stopped by and I did some quick photos (had a replacement battery back at the cabin).

A gap here is good news.

Two paintings sold over the weekend!

Entering White Chief. . . I admit, this is one of my favorites and I was surprised it hung around for two years.
Mineral King Trail

It’s not a gallery with white walls, shiny floors, and lots of space, but my art does well in carefully selected stores. Silver City is the first and best place I’ve ever done business.

P.S. Silver City is 21 miles up the Mineral King Road and is 4 miles below the Mineral King valley.