A Trip to Oregon

 

There is a little bit of important Mineral King news at the bottom of this post.

People say that Oregon is green for a reason, but most of my visits have been sunny. This trip was no exception.

It almost causes me physical pain to leave home, but somehow I was able to pull it off. This is about 15 miles from home, looking through the windshield, remembering Lot’s wife and facing forward, looking ahead to the future, trying to be brave about all I was leaving behind. (A trip is a temporary situation, Central California Artist.)

The great Central Valley of California is so beautiful when the air is clear.

This is heading to Reading. Or perhaps, hedding to Redding.

Once past Redding, Mt. Shasta is visible. Anyone out there remember Shasta soda? The logo on the cans looked just like Mt. Shasta. (Duh.)

Truck Village is always something to look forward to. It is near Weed. (Don’t get your knickers in a twist–ABNER WEED was a man’s name!)

There was a long traffic jam before Weed, and I just didn’t want to stop, so I pushed through to Yreka, stopped for gas, and still felt alert. (Ice cream for dinner helped.) I called my sister to ask how long it would take to get to her place from there. The answer was 4-1/2 hours. Remembering that it was the day with the most daylight of the entire year, and I was heading north, I decided to push on. So, a day of 13 hours of driving, almost two books on CDs, some tunes, a little talk radio, some thinking, some praying, 3 or 4 stops for gas (it is expensive everywhere), some snacking (but I refused to pay $4.49 for a “sharing” size of M&Ms—ARE YOU KIDDING ME??), and no night of poor sleep in some motel with the sounds of traffic, car doors, and strangers banging around with suitcases.

Sister and I did lots of walking. It is a thrill to see the beautiful yards (NO DEER! NO DROUGHT!) with many plants I’ve never seen in bloom.

We also went to a couple of estate sales. This one took the cake.

We visited an arboretum and had fun with a plant identification app on the phone (Picture This, free if you can see the almost invisible “CANCEL” in the upper right corner of the screen each time you open it.)

I attended a celebration of life service for a friend who used to live in Three Rivers. This photo was taken through the window of the pick-’em-up truck (Fernando stayed home) while crossing the Columbia River on the border of Oregon and Washington. That’s Mt. Hood. It looks like Shasta, because that’s just how it is with those volcanoes. 

We also took an afternoon excursion to McMinnville to a store that specializes in olive oil and balsamic vinegars. I lost control. Phenomenal stuff. (I don’t need no stinkin’ Trader Joe’s!)

To be continued tomorrow. . . 

About Mineral King: (CABIN FOLKS, PAY ATTENTION!), the gate code has been changed. CALL AN MKDA BOARD DIRECTOR FOR THE NEW COMBINATION. IT CANNOT BE GIVEN OUT VIA EMAIL, VOICEMAIL OR TEXT.

A Day Trip to Mineral King

In the olden days (last year), it took about 1-1/2 hour to drive to Mineral King from our house in Three Rivers. This was going slow, stopping to talk to friends encountered on the road, maybe stopping to photograph something.

On Thursday, it took almost 3 hours* to get to Mineral King. This involved a stop to visit with the crew working on the lower section of the road.

I was prepared for a long drive with knitting.

There is a lot of greenery on the way up. Lots of wildflowers too, but I didn’t want to add to the time by asking for photo stops.

This was on the county section. 

Although there wasn’t any active road work after going through the lower gate, Road Guy wants to keep this sign in place so that people who drive the road will be alert. Besides, there could be some road work. There certainly needs to be.

We stopped to talk to a couple of walkers, to rake out a few drainages, and to pick up many traffic cones. Why were so many knocked over? We don’t know. And we stopped at the maintenance barn to visit with the two guys working in MK this summer.

The knitting grew.

This is the background that is overexposed in the knitting photo. It is just above High Bridge, where we stopped for more raking.

There are lots of narrow spaces along the road, but not so much in the upper sections. There is a lot of water running along, under, and across the road, just seeping from the hillsides, running down drainages that aren’t normally running at this time of year. The water is mostly on the paved sections.

Standard photo of the Crowley cabin and Farewell Gap.

The weird piles left from the 2021 fires remain. Road Guy thought the fire crews would return to remove them last summer because they appear to be piles of kindling. Of course they didn’t return.

The juniper tree escaped. It appears in many old photos and was marked to be removed, but better sense prevailed, and this piece of living history remains in the last parking lot.

The daffodils I planted last fall are struggling upward.

Looking alongside the back of the cabin.

I meandered down to a neighboring cabin and was so happy to see all the green growies and flowing water.(Almost said “water flowies” to rhyme.)

The knitting grew.

We walked up to the pack station. Clearly there had been an avalanche, with trees snapped off and bent over, along with a lot of debris on the road.

Chihuahua was running, so I did a little waterology to get it off the road.

Finally, on the way back down, we stopped just above Sky Hook to see the gabion baskets begin to rebuild a major road failure. The construction crew is doing a fabulous job with temporary repairs on the county’s section of the road.

A final thought: if the Mineral King Road normally makes you nervous or jittery, this would not be the year to drive it. (And we still don’t know if/when the Park will open it to the public).

*This wasn’t actual driving time. We stopped to unlock/open/close/relock the two gates, to visit with people, to pick up knocked over traffic cones, to take a few photos, to rake a few culverts . . .

Tomorrow I will return to posting about my artwork. If more Mineral King news occurs, I’ll do my best to post the information. You can also look on the Mineral King website, although the writers there are not as chatty, opinionated, or actually taking photos (but I let them use mine whenever they ask).

 

Mineral King Road, Part 3

Road Guy and the Farmer headed up past Silver City while The Wives (Hiking Buddy and I) got in the Botmobile and headed for home. Road Guy gave me lots of helpful instructions as we went up, such as “keep it in compound low”, “no need to lock in the hubs”, “watch those rocks—they can pop a tire”, “stay in the tracks”, etc.

First weird sight.

Second weird sight.

Now, I will be showing you all the scary parts as we head down. (If the drop-off appears on the right side of the photo, it means I photographed it looking back after we got through.)

This drops off steep and far; it looks mild here, but it is not mild in real life.

Just your basic deep crack in the road.

This is Slapjack, looking back.

I stopped getting out to take the photos and started shooting through the windshield.

Nature is doing her best to reclaim the asphalt.

There were great wildflowers, but we were focused on the other thing (getting down the road intact). Hiking Buddy rolled her window down so I could take this picture of lupine and blazing star without getting out again.

Narrow but passable. Sometimes these aren’t marked because there just weren’t enough traffic cones. Those mainly get used when you could go off the edge and land in the East Fork of the Kaweah River. Otherwise, pay attention! (Pay attention no matter what)

Here are the 2 boulders just above Lookout. The first one is from that notch above the road where it had been precariously perched for decades.

I don’t know these yellow flowers.

Farewell-to-Spring was blooming right through a crack in the asphalt.

The potholes were roaring. 


I stopped taking photos, we got ourselves down safely in the Botmobile, and Road Guy and the Farmer continued their work up.

Bottom line: if you were uncomfortable about driving the road before, you won’t want to drive it this year. (IF it is even officially open).

Mineral King Road, Part 2

Yesterday’s post took us to Cabin Cove, a mile below Silver City, where the backhoe was waiting for Road Guy to continue making the road passable, and mark the narrow parts. The Farmer followed in his pickup, with a rake, traffic cones, and various other necessary items. It is far too dangerous for someone to work there alone, and the Farmer willingly took several days off work to volunteer along with Road Guy.

Let’s admire the skillful handling of this massive yellow machine by our hero, Road Guy.

The Cabin Cove sign lost its hook.

Sometimes the only way to unclog a culvert is with rakes and shovels.

There is a cabin in Cabin Cove named “House of Falling Water”. It was many years before I understood the name, but this year there is no confusion whatsoever.

Thank you, Farmer, for being Road Guy’s ground crew.

Finally, lunchtime.

For some reason, Road Guy turned the backhoe around in front of the Silver City Store. 

Hiking Buddy and I left the guys here and headed down. On Monday you can ride down with us.

Mineral King Road

This will be a long blog post in two or three parts, because there is much to show and much to tell. The main thing you probably want to know is if you can drive to Mineral King. If you have a cabin at Silver City or Cabin Cove and have a smallish vehicle and are a careful driver, then yes. Otherwise, no.

On Friday, June 9, Trail Guy (currently Road Guy), the Farmer, Hiking Buddy, and I went up the Mineral King Road. Road Guy and the Farmer spent 3 days working on the road, and they invited The Wives to accompany them to see how things were progressing.

The assignment for these two determined and intrepid volunteers was “passable and marked”; this was a little hard on Road Guy who took pride in keeping that road in top shape before he was retired. However, the road. . . sigh. Never mind. “Passable and marked” is a tremendous improvement over washed out, collapsed, piled with boulders, tree messes, mud slides, etc. 

They couldn’t begin until the County had the lower parts passable. Once that was done, the Farmer and Road Guy made their way up to the rented backhoe which had been stranded at Lookout since the February storms.

Lest you forget, Road Guy and former roads supervisor volunteered the first 2 weeks of February working with that backhoe to clean out culverts, establish some berms, and get the road somewhat passable. Then the February and March storms came, and it was a very good thing that they had done that prep work. It saved the road. (DO NOT TELL ME I AM EXAGGERATING—instead, pat those guys on the back!)

Alrighty then, let’s begin our tour.

The County Section

Remember the blowout at mile 4.5? It now has a wall and a bridge of planks.

Here is the second washout at SkyHook. The fill has begun; those are gabion baskets on the left and the road will be filled up to the level of the top of those.

The Park

This is above Lookout: passable and marked.

Road Guy said they had been watching that boulder above the road for many years, speculating that all it needed was a little nudge to drop to the road.

See the notch where it was?

Narrow and scary but passable and marked.

It rained very hard the night before and there were new deep mud slicks across the road. Road Guy had his doubts for a brief moment about whether or not we would be able to cross those messes. The trick was to lock in the hubs, then keep rolling, don’t stop.

Narrow, but passable and marked.

A closer look.

Coming to Redwood Canyon, narrow, passable, marked, and look at the next mess!

A “tree mess” is a tangle of multiple trees and roots, unlike a single tree lying across the road. 

The creek at Redwood is roaring. First time I remember ever actually hearing it.

 

These are redwood cones (not to be confused with pine cones or traffic cones.)


Look how many trees were involved in this tree mess.

The mountains beyond, in case you were wondering how things looked.

It is rare to see what the needles of a sequoia tree look like because they are usually many feet above one’s head. (Sequoia=redwood=Big Tree)

We finally made it to the backhoe where it was parked the day before at Cabin Cove. Fancy!

And I got a little demonstration of all the levers and tricks. Road Guy is skilled, experienced, knowledgeable and capable.

Of course I climbed up and sat in the throne. Intimidating piece of equipment.

This has gone on long enough. Tomorrow I will show you what this impressive machine did under the guidance of the very capable Road Guy, all for no pay, all to serve the needs of the Silver City Store and all the cabin folks, and we hope (but do not know yet), the public.

 

Six Meanderings

  1. Tulare County roads department is supposed to finish making the lower part of the Mineral King Road passable this week. Whether or not it will be open to the public is not known.
  2. When it is hot, the cats lie on the concrete of the front porch.
  3. Front to back: Pippin, Jackson (whose tail is always up), Tucker.
  4. When the heat backs off a bit, I hope to return to this painting. Yeah, yeah, I could use the swamp cooler, but you may have noticed that I’d rather be gardening. When I actually do work on it, you will get to see some photos.
  5. This place has the most beautiful views of Moro Rock and Alta Peak.
    6. So does this place:

It is good to live in Tulare County this time of year (but remember, you don’t want to move here because often we have terrible air, we are all fat and undereducated, and there is no Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods.)

Interesting Inquiry

If you receive these posts in email and the pictures in the post don’t show for you, tap here janabotkin.net. It will take you to the blog on the internet.

Recently, I got this email:

Hello –
I have an artist proof -pencil drawing of Farewell Gap by Jana M. Botkin –
It is approximately 11 “ x 13 “ —
I would like to know the value –
Attached is pics —

Thank you ,

(name, which I have left off for privacy purposes)

This is the picture she showed me (but hers was an artist’s proof):

Oh. Ick.  This is my reply to her:

Thank you for asking. I drew that in about 1987 and had about 100 reproduction prints made, which allowed me to add 10 to the run as “artist’s proofs”. These reproductions only have the value that people assign to them, and since I am not dead (yet!), please don’t view it as anything other than a piece of paper with a reproduced drawing of the most popular view in Mineral King.

When I looked further, I saw that I only had 50 prints made, which means only 5 could have been designated as “artist’s proofs”. I sent her another email to correct my mistake.

Maybe I should have offered to buy it from her, and then run it through my shredder. 

She sent a second email, asking if an artist’s proof is worth more than a numbered print. I told her the same thing as before: such items are only worth what another person is willing to pay for it.

This is my most recent drawing of the same scene; you can see why I am cringing when faced with the old one.

Blessings on all you lovely kind people who bought my art back then.

Finishing a Plein Air Drawing

If you receive these posts in email and the pictures in the post don’t show for you, tap here janabotkin.net. It will take you to the blog on the internet.

Plein air means “on location”. Last summer I sat by the stream in Mineral King with a set of 12 colored pencils to see if I could complete a drawing on location.

Not a chance. 

My friend Carrie Lewis posted the project on her blog, and recently someone asked if I would complete the drawing.

Since nothing is pressing right now, I decided to finish the drawing in the studio, but this time using the entire set of 120 colored pencils (Polychromos by Faber Castell)

I’ll just show you the photo, then all seven progressive scans, minus any jibber jabber. (But you can ask me questions in the comments, if you want to know anything specific about the process.)

I am finished and the drawing is done. (Did you know that people aren’t supposed to be “done”?)

This is Vandever, the right half of Farewell Gap in Mineral King, as seen by the Honeymoon Cabin from the gnarly juniper.

Make me an offer! The highest bidder (if not too insulting) before March 31 will be considered. The unframed drawing is approximately 6×8″.

 

Chasing the Water on the Mineral King Road

Yesterday we turned around at Lookout Point after walking up the steepest section of the Mineral King Road, and headed back downhill. 

Trail Guy, formerly known as Road Guy, explained that the old road above sloughed off and caused the disturbance that stopped our forward progress. This spot is ABOVE the gate and BELOW Lookout Point.

While he was puttering in the water and mud, I photographed these bay leaves. Too bad we can’t do scratch-and-sniff here.

This weird boulder with its odd indentations is just below where we stopped driving. AGAIN: Above the gate and below Lookout.

I walked down to White Rock, formerly known as Bird Poop Rock, which I explained at the beginning of this post.

Still ABOVE the gate and BELOW Lookout.

We encountered some folks along the way back, and while the dudes were shooting the breeze, I photographed this tree with peculiar bark clusters. (I have no idea. . .)

Ahead is a typical slump of a saturated bank, and beyond that are “the potholes”. This is BELOW the gate.

This is Squirrel Creek, AKA “The Potholes” in this location; it has big holes in the slippery rock face, normally visible and very enticing to folks driving down the hill. Fantastic water flow!

This section of road could be a bit of a problem for a HumVee or other wide vehicle. The county road department certainly has its work cut out for next few weeks (months?). This is BELOW the potholes.Here is another mess. Also below the potholes.

Look at what is happening along the gutter side of the road. I wanted to get out and play in the water, but we’d been gone long enough. 

All the rest of these photos are below the potholes above the Oak Grove Bridge

These folks will have some difficulty accessing their driveway for awhile. It isn’t a primary residence, the owners live far away, and I doubt if they will be too troubled or even know about it. “Whose drive this is, I think I know; his house is in the city though. He will not see us stopping here to watch his drive slide down the road.” (With apologies to Robert Frost)

What is going on here? That plant is shooting up out of the pavement. And so much for last summer’s pothole patching efforts.

Messy, messy, messy.

Let’s conclude this weird little road trip with a look at my favorite bridge. It has been quite a few years since I have been able to see the water because of all the growth obstructing the view. 

Thank you for joining us on this tour. Maybe next week I’ll get some work done and show it to you.

FOR CLARIFICATION: WE DID THIS LITTLE ROAD TRIP THE DAY BEFORE THE PARK ISSUED THEIR ROAD CLOSED DECREE.

One of the Mineral King webcams is working again: mkwebcam.