Why 2017 Was Different in Mineral King

  1. Lots of water, lots and lots and even more.
  2. Lots of wildflowers – taller, wider variety, new flowers, abundance.
    Wild Blue Flax
    Shooting Star – often more purplish than pinkish, sometimes named “Jeffrey”
    Crimson Columbine

    Sky Pilot
  3. No bear sightings. None.

    See? No bears.
  4. Favorite neighbors The Sawtooth Six did not come as a group. Weird. (Don’t make this a regular practice, you Six!)

    Sawtooth Six and Trail Guy, 2008
  5. I was there for most of July; no workshops, no lessons, no commissions, no shows, no books, no trips, no one dying in my family, no projects. Nice.
    Surround Sound in water!

    Have I ever seen this before? It seems to be everywhere this year. I think it will turn into a berry.

    Samson didn’t think it was such a great summer. Don’t worry, Little Buddy. We’re home now for a long long time.

Oil Painting Accountability

Oil painting isn’t my favorite thing; pencil drawing architectural subjects is my favorite thing. Given the choice between oil painting and waiting tables or cleaning motel rooms, OF COURSE I’d choose oil painting. However, some days it helps to have a bit of accountability to do the thing that isn’t my favorite.

My nephew didn’t want to go to class (he is in college) and I didn’t want to paint. So I said I would if he would. We both did. Yea, Nephew! Yea, me!

Here are the results of that accountability.This:Became this:And now looks like this:

All that remains is to let it dry so I can flip it onto its top to paint the bottom edge and then sign it!

And another Mineral King Sawtooth oil painting will be finished.

Final Mineral King Weekend

This will be a long post with lots of photos, and then I might run out of things to post about Mineral King for awhile.It didn’t have to be the final Mineral King weekend, because the Park gates stay unlocked until October 25. But, life down the hill beckons, fall is very full of events for us, and we need to close things up when the weather is still good during a season of unpredictable weather.

We have taken on the responsibility of closing the Honeymoon Cabin for the past several years. This is a little cabin left after Disney destroyed the resort in advance of building their ski resort, which never happened. The cabin is now a mini museum of Mineral King history, open all summer to anyone who wanders in. It is at the beginning of the Eagle/Mosquito/White Chief trail.

This is the interior. It is about 10×10′.

After our chores, we had time for a final walk.

Sorry to disappoint you, but this is a juniper tree, not a redwood. Mineral King is too high for redwoods.
The yellow tunnel isn’t very bright this fall.
This deer reminds me of Samson
Cowboy Bert listens to an animated Trail Guy explain something important.
It was a smoky smoky smoky day. There was a wildfire south of us.
My favorite ranger of all time!
These are cottonwoods.
These are juniper berries

And then we made time for one final pass down the Nature Trail. It goes through so many changes in such a short season. . . in July it was packed with all variety of wildflowers. Now, just look at this:

Sawtooth

The Captain

Three weeks ago these were goldenrods.

This was an unusual summer in Mineral King for several reasons. Perhaps I’ll make a list for you next Friday.

Fall in Mineral King

Warm sunny fall days in Mineral King . . . a transitional time, torn between 2 places. I could be gardening at home, but I can still be hiking in Mineral King. I’ve been gone much of the summer, I miss home, but the cabin is still open and it is nice up there. 

Choices and consequences, decisions, saying yes to one thing means saying no to a whole bunch of others.

We were up the hill last weekend and these are some fall sights.

Lots of wood, but not enough is split. We have more fires in the stove in the fall and sugar pine burns up quickly.Fortunately, it splits easily.Alrighty, then, let’s go for a walk. (Not a hike – used too much energy swinging an ax? Nah, just lazy.)

I helped Trail Guy close up a neighbor’s cabin – such solid shutters.
The water in the east fork of the Kaweah seems just as low as it did in the falls of drought years.
Very heavy currant crop this year
A neighboring cabin isn’t quite closed for the season, but has that “almost over” look.
Tall grasses and a more yellowish coloring on things say “Fall”.
The cottonwoods are turning.
I love this tunnel of yellow.
Very low flow of water at Soda Springs, tall grasses, that golden look over all. . .
Pink?? What is this? Dried out something-or-others. Definitely not golden.
Just three months ago it was too scary to cross this stream (Crystal Creek).
A stock party lost a bag of grain along the trail.
A hiker lost his group, and Sierra the Trailhead Ranger is on her way to escort him back while Trail Guy demonstrates the path that we saw the search helicopter take. You can tell it is fall because he is wearing long sleeves.

Cabin Drawing Flag Adjustment

A flag seems like an appropriate topic for today.

The customers were sort of happy with their Mineral King cabin drawing, but not overjoyed. “Sort of happy” is not good enough. After a bit of conversation, they said the flag was too bright and drew too much attention.

My dad liked to quote a Latin phrase De gustibus non est disbutandem, which translates “it is useless to argue over matters of taste”.

I completely understand. A drawing is never finished until the customer is completely happy. While they were present in the studio, I redid the flag. Now they are happy!

Before:

After:

Because I did the flag in bright colored pencils before discussing it with them, I used Faber Castell’s Polychromos, an oil-based colored pencil that erases. Although I am very comfortable with the colors of Prismacolor and they are sitting very conveniently on my drawing table, they are wax-based colored pencils that don’t erase, so I resisted the urge to use them.

Phew.

 

Hiking Mineral King – Empire Again

Some friends were visiting and had never been to Empire. We planned to go, woke up to horrible smoky conditions, waffled a bit, and then went anyway.

Smoke from the Pier fire (near Camp Nelson) blew over Farewell Gap during the night.
Even more smoke visible down canyon toward Three Rivers. Are we supposed to be breathing this stuff??
Trail Guy is quite happy that there is still flowing water, even in early September. That green makes me happy.
Like father, like daughter. A pleasure to hike with these 2 friends!
This is semi-sorta the view in the mural I painted for the Mineral King Room of the Three Rivers History museum. It’s also an excuse to show more of the green.
That isn’t Sawtooth – I don’t know its real name but it is often referred to as “Sawtooth’s Shadow”. Mostly I was pleased to see some blue sky.
It was a little hard to tell if we were seeing smoke or a coming storm, but the thunder told us the truth.
Trail Guy to Techie Friend – “Wow, that’s cool.” Techie Friend to Trail Guy – “Does your Jitterbug take photos?”
This old wagon road up on the side of Empire never fails to amaze me. Those old miner guys worked so hard and found no gold.
Father-daughter hiking team
The others headed over to inspect some old mining debris; I headed toward the trees because the rain was coming and I wanted a head start.
City Girl was THRILLED by the rain and hail!
Trail Guy prefers a garbage bag to the heavier alternative of a poncho.
Is that Gandolph down in the bunkhouse ruins??
Rain stopped, so we followed the tram line back down to the trail, past the ruins of an old ore bucket.
The rain cleared up the air, somewhat.

Cabin Drawing in Pencil

My business and website is called Cabin Art or Cabinart. This is because when I began, I lived in a cabin and I drew cabins.

I still live in a cabin (part time) and still draw them.

Here is the latest commissioned pencil drawing of a Mineral King cabin:

After seeing the Hume Lake cabin drawing from 1995 and reworking it, you can bet your boots that I was hyper-careful while working on this drawing. The photos were mine from 2 different photography sessions, there was much conversation about what should and shouldn’t appear, I used multiple photos to be certain of what I was seeing, and I went over the entire drawing with a magnifying glass at the end. In another 22 years, I don’t expect I will be able to repair or improve this one.

Hiking Mineral King – White Chief Part 2

White Chief might be the most beautiful place accessible by foot from Mineral King. Short hike, steep, lots of variety. Any time Trail Guy encounters someone along the trail below the Eagle Lake/White Chief junction, he tells them they will be happier if they choose White Chief. 

Here are more photos from our Eclipse Day White Chief walk/hike.

What is this flowering shrub??
What is this teensy darker version of a Baby-Blue-Eyes??
What is this unknown yellow flower??
Slow but handy way to fill a water bottle.

There are more photos, but they were on Trail Guy’s camera because I overworked my battery. Aiming at the sun may not have been such a good idea. . . 

More tomorrow? Stay tuned. . .

Hiking Mineral King – White Chief

The eclipse. Big deal. Lots of chatter. Lots of ideas. Lots of rah-rah. What to do about it in Mineral King?

Easy! Poke a hole in a piece of cardboard with an ice pick, get a piece of white paper, and walk to White Chief. 

I say “walk” because I elected to not carry a pack or food. My camera was in my pocket, and a water bottle was in my hand. Let’s go!

Neither Trail Guy nor I had ever used a device like this. We both decided that if a “pinhole” (ice pick sized) is good, then why not a larger hole?
The answer is that the small hole works; the larger ones do not. We have a theory on why this is, but it will take too long to type.
I couldn’t tell the difference between light from an eclipsed sun and light when high clouds are obscuring the sunshine.
See the light in the ice-pick-sized hole? The moon kept eclipsing the sun for awhile, although I was hard-pressed to tell without the device.
Trail Guy insisted that the light was different from just a cloudy day. He’s observant and artistic like that; me? I just bumble along.

Since the steepest part of the hike was behind us, we decided to just keep on trucking up the trail into White Chief. The day became very crystal clear.

When this thick cloud passed over the sun, I aimed my camera at it. Does this look like an eclipse?

To be continued. . . tune in tomorrow.

Cabin Life

In case you were thinking that life at the cabin consisted only of hiking, here is a peek into what else occupies time while in Mineral King. I also read a great deal, but didn’t photograph my books. I figure you know what books look like. Most recently I finished Round Ireland with a Fridge and Stranger in the Woods.

Baking in a wood stove is a project. Making English muffins can be done on a griddle . . . who knew??
Sometimes we just walk among neighboring cabins. . . snooping, checking out new maintenance, looking for flowers in bloom. . .
I’ve always loved the light on the chimney of this little cabin. It is the oldest one in Mineral King.
This pair of cabins belongs to some people in Hawaii. They don’t come often; instead they let other people use their place. Sometimes those other people have loud parties, but this year has been much better, i.e. quiet.
Explorer’s Gentian – my favorite wildflower
And more Explorer’s Gentian – why does it bloom on this side of the creek and not by our place??
I love to split firewood. Trail Guy gets it into girl-sized chunks, and I whale at it with my girl-axe. It isn’t often in our current times that there are opportunities to just pound on things. It is very satisfying – I’d recommend it.
This yarn is the color of Explorer’s Gentian. Cabin time means knitting time.