Sometimes I need to leave Mineral King for the peacefulness of Three Rivers. MK is a very social place, and although I have decent social skills (please allow me this illusion), I am an introvert who needs a copious amount of solitude.
The hazard tree crew has been working in our neighborhood.
I love the evening light coming through to the corn lily and grasses. It is especially nice when these folks are present and have their flag flying. I’ve drawn that a couple of times.
I called the drawings “Dawn’s Early Light”, because most people won’t be familiar with the direction of the cabin or the lay of the land. The first one was done long ago when my web designer put watermarks on my art (as if anyone would want to steal it, or as if we could prevent such a catastrophic occurrence.) I think I used the same photo for both drawings.
There was no time for hiking, but Hiking Buddy and I took what we shall refer to as two different “morning constitutional walks”.
First one: Timber Gap/Monarch junction
On the way up
On the way back
Second one: White Chief/Eagle/Mosquito junction
Heading up
Heading back (Timber Gap in the distance)
July and August are busy in Mineral King, particularly among the cabin folks.
Like that song by Dolly Parton? Nope. Starting 2 new oil paintings of Mineral King (and finishing one other).
This is 3×9”, a new size I found in Salem at Michael’s. Visalia’s Michael’s doesn’t have any this size (or the 4×12”, which I quickly used to paint Sequoia trees.) This does not surprise me; the Central Valley of California usually gets lesser quality merchandise in its chain stores, of which there is an abundance (EXCEPT for Trader Joe’s, of course). However, we did get the largest Catholic church in North America, right in Visalia, although after a year of asking me to write and rewrite a contract to paint a mural, no contract was signed. In frustration, annoyance, exasperation, and a big injection of reality I raised my prices significantly. They gasped in horror, went searching for another muralist, and now, 2 years later, STILL NO MURAL.
Wait—we were talking about new paintings. This will be titled Mineral King Dusk #??
Here is a 6×12” of the classic Mineral King scene. Yes, upside down.
Layer #1 is now good enough to set aside for drying.
This trail scene, Mineral King Trail III, is now drying, awaiting a scan.
The color will be truer with the scan.
Why is it called “scan”, which is the first syllable of the word “scandal”? And why does it sound so close to “scam”?
Today’s post is just a handful of photos in Mineral King. I recently went to Hume Lake instead of Mineral King but understand that my audience prefers seeing and reading about Mineral King. No offense to Hume Lake people—just accepting the identity of my blog readers. The first best summer of my life was 1978 at Hume Lake. Then my first summer at Silver City (4 miles below Mineral King) in 1985 became the Best Summer of My Life (and that was even before I met the love of my life.)
Mineral King has rustic and unique cabins. I recently had the opportunity to spend time at almost every one. It was a work thing: another cabin owner realized the need for propane tanks to have their cabin numbers visible on the tanks. We discussed press-on numbers and stencils; hand-painted numbers were the simplest solution. Nope, no photos of the numbers, just two photos of things that struck my fancy.
Rustic, but undergoing a few repairs. Those stone steps really grabbed me (not literally—don’t worry!)
Unique—the light was uncooperative but if you study this, you’ll see that the chimney was built to abut this boulder.
Why is this horse standing with his front feet in the trough? Some questions just don’t have answers.
This road leads to the pack station, then becomes a trail. In the olden trails (when Trail Guy was just a boy), people could drive past the pack station and even go up to Crystal Creek and cross it! In their cars!
Maybe I’ll do a post on Hume Lake. . . more will be revealed in the fullness of time.
There really are only so many potential titles to a repetitive blog topic. This could be “A Day at the Easels”, but I chose to paint flat on the table, or holding the canvas in my hand. It could be “A Day with an Audio Book”, but then I’d have to make a book report.
Let’s just get on with it, shall we?
Paintings are selling steadily at the Silver City Store; the main subjects are the Crowley cabin with Farewell Gap in the background, the Honeymoon Cabin, and Sawtooth. I wanted to paint something DIFFERENT, and after my recent hike to White Chief, it was an easy choice.
This isn’t White Chief but it is the trail to White Chief. I took a nice photo of Trail Guy with three cabin neighbors as he led them to White Chief (they haven’t spent much time at their family cabin—as a result, they needed a guide*). Because I don’t know them very well, it seemed prudent to keep their faces off of the World Wide Web. However, I thought the trail was quite nice in and of itself.
Break time! Oh look, there’s my favorite cat, Tucker, “hiding” in the tall grass.
This may look finished to most folks, but it wants another layer and more detail to satisfy your Central California Artist. (It is 8×10” in case you are wondering how I got so far in half a day of painting.)
Now, it’s time to paint White Chief. This is not how it looked in early July, although it could be how it looked in early July of a wet year. Can’t remember. . . I’ve slept since then. Besides, Trail Guy took my reference photo for this 8×10” painting, so I wasn’t there.
Yeppers, right on schedule, Jackson showed up and meowed at me. When I didn’t respond, he was fixin’ to bite me, so I hauled his 20+ lb. self onto my lap for a bit. He pretended to enjoy it, but put his claws in me** so I would just feed him already.
Like the trail painting, this requires another layer and more detail.
It was an altogether satisfying day of painting, one that flew by with that audio book. (Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate, in case you are curious.)
*They could have simply followed the trail but they would have missed out on a wealth of information.
**Not mean-like, just that thing cats do when they purr. He isn’t mean when he bites, only insistent and bossy. Downright domineering, actually.
Because yesterday was Independence Day, today’s post is a bonus. I wouldn’t want anyone to miss out on a weekly Mineral King update!
“Hanging out” has ceased to be slang; what terminology did people use before this?
We don’t hike a lot anymore. Bum knee, numb feet. Walking is good enough for now. We headed toward the upper valley on this trail which was a road during Trail Guy’s childhood.
There were a few stray carrots lying on the ground, which Trail Guy retrieved to feed the stock.
A mule or two usually get out of the corrals. This causes many questions: 1. How? 2. Why? 3. Why just one? 4. Can’t some Park Packer Person make the fence tighter? (I’ve learned mules can leap pretty high, but I’m not convinced.)
We encountered some friends at Crystal Creek WITH A DOG. Everyone knows this is against National Park rules, or do they?? These fine folks were being very careful about it all, but if other people see them, they’ll assume dogs are okay if they are on a leash. Nope. It might be okay in the National Forest, but Mineral King is in Sequoia National Park, where dogs are not allowed on trails.
If you don’t want to get your feet wet crossing Crystal Creek, go a little above the trail and balance on those sticks. (I just walked through, as usual.)
My destination was Franklin Falls; Trail Guy’s knee along with his dislike of straight up-and-backs caused him to turn off the trail while I powered upward.
If you want to cross Franklin Creek, this is how the dry boulders arranged as stepping stones look.
I turned around and met up with Trail Guy just above Crystal Creek. The flowers were excellent, as one expects during late June, early July in Mineral King.
The rest of the photos are from meandering around, nothing noteworthy other than peak season in Mineral King.
So many shades of green.
This is sort of interesting: like beachcombers, we find all sorts of things while meandering around. This time it was a Benadryl Itch Relief stick, a blue carabiner, a fork, 3 grommets from tarps, and a large bottle of water sitting by the road.
Sunday morning’s temperature at our cabin was 33°. This was on the second day of SUMMER! My 7 year old neighbor and I discussed the fact that the seasons don’t always follow the calendar.
Because it was unseasonably cool, we opted to walk up the usually hot and dusty trail toward Timber Gap, Monarch Lake, Crystal Lake, and Sawtooth. Nope, those were not our destinations; we chose to go to Groundhog Meadow. It was just a walk, not a hike. (Hikes have backpacks with food and water; walks are just walks.)
The parking lot was full of cars protected from marmots by blue tarps. Usually the marmots have ceased their automotive destruction by this date, but most people don’t know this and aren’t willing to take chances.
The trail is steep with giant steps for the first 1/4 mile or so. After passing the turn to Timber, you eventually come across this funny little spring, just shooting directly out of the side of the mountain.
I remembered the trail wrong: I thought there was a long straight section, with more steep steps to the so-called meadow. Instead, it was more steep steps to a long straight section that led to Groundhog Meadow. Our little friend viewed it as a hike and carried a pack in spite of my explanations. This girl makes up her own mind.
Groundhog Meadow is a weird name to me. What meadow? And aren’t they marmots, not groundhogs? Who named this place? This is Groundhog Meadow, which to me is simply a stream crossing.
Being close to the beginning of July, which I view as the peak wildflower season, there were good wildflowers.
If you take the old Sawtooth trail, it leads to a nearby meadow; maybe this is Groundhog. Sure has a good view of Sawtooth!
There is one dicey part of the trail pretty close to the stream crossing on the way up. Here it is on the way back down.
Boring unknown white flower. . . if I do a second edition of Mineral King Wildflowers, will this make it into the book?
Hiking Buddy and I walked up to Crystal Creek. It has all gotten so lush and green in just the 3 weeks since I was last in Mineral King. Some of the ferns might croak due to the low temperatures, and a few of the lupine looked droopy.
Crystal Creek looks low, but it is because after the wet winter of 2023, its course changed to three spread-out sections across the trail instead of one charging stream.
Ugh. So many dead trees. Drought? Some sort of beetle that takes advantage of a weakened state? We’ve had some decent winters, but the preceeding dry winters have taken their toll.
Indian Paintbrush was the dominant flower on this walk. That’s Timber Gap in the distance, in case you need help getting oriented.
This is looking up the trail toward Farewell Gap, Vandever in the distance.
Thus we conclude another Mineral King report—walks, not hikes, grateful to be able to walk, wearing my latest hiking Crocs, called All Terrain Atlas Clogs. These have thick soles and I think they’ll last awhile.
(Take that, stupid Peripheral Neuropathy! You can’t stop me from walking on trails, so there.)
Who wants to hear about Oregon?? Not as many of my tens of readers as want to hear about Mineral King.
While I was on the road, Trail Guy was in Mineral King. (Are you surprised? Then you might be new here. . . welcome!) You may recognize these photos as coming from his camera, because it usually has a dark spot in the sky.
First, he saw a Western Tanager, a yearly sighting. Blurry, so I’ve made this photo small.
Then he went to White Chief.
This is Crystal Creek from across the valley.
This juniper is everybody’s favorite tree.
Here is White Chief, sometimes described as a canyon, sometimes as a valley, sometimes as a dry lake.
The flat top peak is White Chief Peak.
Trail Guy calls this “Walden Pond”. It is NOT White Chief Lake. That’s up a steep steep steep slope below White Chief Peak.
Back in the valley (the Mineral King Valley), this rock outcropping continues to impersonate a mountain ridge which we call Empire. From this angle, it appears to be the top, but it isn’t.
Trail Guy also went to Timber Gap. This is the classic view from the trail. White Chief Peak is visible, identifiable by its squared off top.
Five-spot on the left, phlox on the right.
Shooting star. Jeffrey Shooting Star. Don’t forget about Jeffrey, whoever he was.
When he got home to Three Rivers, he found this brand new, recently born set of twins, right in our yard.
Great. Now we’ll never get rid of these voracious landscape-destroying creatures.
Notecards have been a mainstay of my art business since 1987 (maybe you weren’t born yet). There used to be many stores throughout Tulare County that sold these steadily, and I spent copious amounts of time packaging cards, sometimes with the help of my parents or my friend Gnat.
The packages had two each of five designs and retailed for $5.00. It was possible to make a profit because I worked at a print shop and received a discount, but had to order large quantities to make this work. “Large” means 1000 or more of each design, instead of the 100 or so I now order. Since this was before email, most of polite society used cards. (Impolite society didn’t send thank you notes.)
Now notecards can be ordered online, and if I wait for a discount sale from the company who prints the cards, I can make a small profit selling four cards (all same design in a package) for $10.
Have you picked yourself back up off the floor? Okey dokey, let’s see the new designs coming soon. These were chosen to please my higher selling stores’ customers, many of whom are visitors to the area in the summer. The pencil drawings aren’t new; the paintings were completed recently (within the last year).
Kaweah River
Generals Highway
General Sherman Tree
Lake Kaweah
Sawtooth #65 (such an elegant title!)
These are all scenes drawn or painted from my* photos, sometimes embellished and made up from several photos and my memory, all specific to eastern Tulare County: Three Rivers, Sequoia National Park, and Mineral King.
The notecards will be available at Kaweah Arts in Three Rivers and on this page of my website.
*Except Lake Kaweah, generously supplied by my friend Rachel.
I’ve been gone. These pictures were taken two weeks ago. The snow was still plentiful on Farewell Gap, and the water was high.
Someone left his boots in the parking lot. They were gone the next day. Glad they were retrieved.
The light was very beautiful.
I saw the tiniest wildflowers and it was a reminder to keep a dime in my pocket to photograph these little ones so that you can understand the size (also in case I do a second edition of Mineral King Wildflowers.)
The wildflowers were decent along the Nature Trail, if you kept your eyes open, always a good policy when walking a trail (or a city sidewalk, or a rural road, or your hallway or. . .) These are both violets. (I just work here.)
This is a different sort of currant, but I forget the name.
Forget me nots are the most wonderful blue, a color that is hard to find in domestic flowers.
Mineral King, I won’t forget you. I’ll be back soon!
