The parking lot was empty on Saturday morning, because the restrictions on the road and on recreation weren’t officially lifted until 10 a.m. Most people didn’t learn of the restriction removal until the end of the day on Friday. This doesn’t really make it easy for people to plan for the weekend, but the Park is in charge, and we are not.
It was so nice to see Timber Gap again.
This cabin might actually be repaired before winter.
The wood was a regular sight; many trees were dropped and bucked up along the road, due to a contracted tree removal crew.
It felt good to swing an ax; we burned quite a bit of wood because it was chilly in the evenings and the mornings.
Here’s another sign of neglect. Literally.
Ranger Mary was lonely at the Ranger station. Backcountry permits are set up on the porch for self-registration now.
On Friday, September 20, we headed up the hill. The Park restrictions were still in place, so we made sure we were on the road during the permitted hours, which were quite illogical. Whatever. They are in charge; we are not. We only met 3 vehicles, all part of a construction crew on a cabin.
That pink stuff was all along the road, mostly on the uphill side. It is fire retardant called “borate”. The idea was to widen the road as a barrier to fire, should it climb up to the road.
Follow the pink road.
This is the view upcanyon, just above Lookout Point. The fire made it to Lookout and then crossed the road a bit, but we didn’t stop to figure out the particulars. We only stopped to chat with the Park employee, on loan from some Southern California park, to be sure that she made an opportunity to drive to the end of the road.
You can see borate across the canyon, along with swaths of burned areas.
The road is in terrible shape. No surprise, that. The air was clear and clean and it was a great relief to arrive at our cabin.
Normally you get to read about Mineral King on Fridays, but I have nothing to show or tell you. Maybe you only look at the pictures anyway. Maybe I am just talking to myself. . .
We went for a bikeride, curious about the firecamp at the Lions’ Roping Arena and the former Three Rivers Airport (more of a strip than a port, and closed for decades now.)
Even the most beautiful yard in Three Rivers looks a bit tired in September. August used to be my worst favorite month, but it has now become September (fires, can’t get to the cabin to get away from the heat, the deer really start chomping down my yard, everything is dusty and smoky, sick of heat, wanting to be home but so tired of heat—waa waa, someone call the wambulance.)
The number of vehicles and equipment and personnel has diminished. They are certainly keeping the gravel road watered and packed, but it is still washboardy on a bicycle.
We stood in the shade of this tree and visited with our friend, who is working security at the second gate.
I was happy to see these little guys are still in residence.
Those trucks are lined up, waiting their turn to get washed. Maybe it is a crew that is leaving.
I wonder what those sleeping trailers are like inside: probably very dark and cool. I think many of the workers choose to stay in local motels.
I don’t know what all the trucks and equipment are busy with or why, but I bet that whoever owns the former airstrip is making bank.
Enough of this fire stuff; off to the airport bridge to check out the river before the uphill ride home. (As a bonus, you now know why it is call the “airport bridge”. When we were kids and drove over it, we were instructed to, “roll up your windows—there are hippies!” I wonder if any of them was my future husband. . .)
I’m in a bit of a holding pattern, waiting for several things: the Mineral King road to open, a week-long plein air painting trip to Monterey, the indexer to finish repairing the index on the TB book, and my show, Simply Home, to open.
Tucker loves the unmowed lawn, which is part of one of my gardening experiments.
What’s a person to do while waiting? Stuff, both personal and professional. (What word did people use before “stuff” became a ubiquitous filler?)
Oh-oh! Where will Tucker hide now?
Personal stuff: enjoy being home, work in the yard, do some work on the landscaping at church, read, organize some messes, hang out with the cats, you know, just stuff.
Such a sorry excuse for a pomegranate. The tree has not produced a single edible normal sized piece of fruit in over 15 years.
Professional stuff: my art has been retrieved from the Silver City Store and also from the Mural Gallery. This means that I have to change information on my inventory lists, and put card packages away.
Finally, some time to think about and design a calendar for 2025. This will be based on the upcoming show, Simply Home. Yeah, yeah, I KNOW that people care more about Mineral King than my art, but I am trying to earn a living here. (My farmer dad used to say that he “scratched his living out of the dust of the earth”. Maybe I just scratch mine out with pencils, or smear it out with paint. . .) So, because I am an active citizen of Realville, I have ordered fewer calendars than in previous years. This means if you snooze, you lose, unless the demand warrants a second order.
Why is my vitex tree blooming in September? Why is it called “vitex”, which sounds like some sort of nutritional supplement?
Oh that’s right—it is time to design a new Christmas card. Yeah, yeah, I KNOW that fewer people send cards every year, except for those flat ones full of tiny photos of themselves doing glorious things throughout the year. Not me. Each year I design a new card and send them to my drawing students (and a small handful of distant friends), using the United States Postal Service.
And while putting away the paintings that did not have a chance to sell at Silver City, I studied them and decided that they each deserved more attention.
With the Coffeepot Fire about 10-15 miles down the road from the Mineral King valley, the smoke blows up each day, anywhere from 9:30 until noon. Sometimes it clears up a bit in the afternoon or early evening, then it blows back down the canyon at night.
Trail Guy took these clear morning photos for us so that we won’t completely despair of ever seeing the beauty of Mineral King again.
(The occasional weird spots in the sky are due to some malfunction in his camera.)
Compare this to Timber Gap belowCompare this to Empire below
Then, the smoke arrived.
Timber is starting to fade.Empire is fading fast.Timber Gap is there somewhere.Empire is there somewhere
This happened almost daily the week before Labor Day and during the weekend of uncertainty.
Tomorrow we will return to our regular broadcasting topics.
After wondering all weekend if we would be evacuated from Mineral King, a Park employee came by our cabins on Monday morning around 8, telling us to be at the Conifer gate (7.5 miles below our cabins) to be escorted out. If we didn’t want to go, that was fine, but then we’d be unable to leave for 48 to 72 hours. (They couldn’t make us go but they would be able to make us stay. . .?)
There were about 10 cars, including Park personnel, with someone at the front of the line and someone at the rear.
There was a meeting of the Silver City Mayor and the Mineral King Mayor, as they discussed and examined the locks on the Conifer Gate.
We headed down into thickening smoke. . .
. . . and were stopped at Wolverton Point. Another caravan was heading up the hill.
Lookout Point is a gathering place for vehicles. Initially it was built to look out for fires; now it is a place to look out at fires.
The mayors convened at the lower gate for another session of locks, while a Park person oversaw their negotiations.
It was a long weird smoky drive down. The good part is that we never had to wonder if we would encounter any vehicles coming up the road.
Tomorrow (yes, Sunday, I know. . .) I will share some photos of Mineral King, taken by Trail Guy to contrast the smoke with the clarity of the mornings.
What does one do in Mineral King when it is too smoky out for any real exertion or appreciation of the scenery?
Sometimes one sits inside with a friend and draws.
Sometimes one does chores, anticipating an early closing due to uncertainty.
That uncertainty chased us all weekend along. We contacted cabin neighbors who were not present to ask if they’d like their cabins drained so at least the pipes wouldn’t freeze. We had no way of knowing if the road would be closed or when we might be suddenly evacuated due to the Coffeepot Fire.
This isn’t too bad, smoke-wise. The intensity of it changed throughout the day and from day to day.
The fire isn’t threatening Mineral King, but if it crossed the East Fork of the Kaweah and started climbing toward the road, there would be too much equipment to allow civilian traffic.
I did some noticing of details, while just hanging around.
There was a short walk to inspect a footbridge that got replaced. Seems that the Park has been attending to some of its neglected maintenance chores.
Ooh, a hint of fall
The little cowgirl insisted on visiting the mules again. This was not recreational, of course.
She was a little braver this time.
Thus, we ended another day on a weekend of uncertainty in Mineral King.
After a harrowing intense drive, an hour longer than normal, we made it to Mineral King. It was smoky when we arrived, not worth any photos.
We gathered with neighbors in the early evening to share snacks, stories, and speculations on what the uncertain weekend might hold for us.
One member of our little group was more tickled by her sparkly cowgirl boots than interested in adult conversation.
The next morning, she requested that someone accompany her to the pack station so she could greet the mules, and perhaps even feed them a few carrots, pilfered from the previous evening’s snack trays. We were all early risers, because that is when the air was cleared out from the night’s down-canyon breezes.
Trail Guy willingly postponed breakfast to accompany our little friend.
There was a brief stop to admire the grouse.
Trail Guy ended up doing the carrot-feeding, since the little cowgirl was a bit intimidated by the eagerness of the stock.
They returned to the cabins so that Trail Guy could have his postponed breakfast, but Hiking Buddy and I headed toward Franklin Falls. We were NOT recreating—it was strictly for health purposes. I was testing my numb feet to see if they could carry me 4 miles on a trail. And it was ENTIRELY NECESSARY to scrub out our lungs with some clean air.
Made it 2 miles; could I make it back? Let’s not worry about that just yet.
Wait! What is this?? It’s Dylan on Emmy, leading his string out of the backcountry after resupplying a trail crew.
In case you didn’t know, if you encounter stock while on a trail, move BELOW them off the trail.
We crossed Crystal Creek on the way back to the cabins, and this time I just walked straight through. We knew time was of the essence, because the smoke was working its way back up into the Mineral King valley.
One last look at the beautiful Emmy at the pack station, with the faithful plainer-looking but still handsome Chuck behind.
We had a smoky afternoon and evening to get through. I’ll tell and show you more tomorrow as we continue our tale of an uncertain weekend in Mineral King.
My regular posts are postponed while I tell you of our weekend of uncertainty in Mineral King.
I went up the hill with a friend/cabin neighbor on Friday morning. She picked me up at 10:30, and we did not arrive at our cabins until 1 p.m. I used the word “harrowing” to describe the drive, and while Trail Guy wasn’t there, he said the word was too strong. So, I pulled it back to “intense”.
For the first 6.5 miles, we encountered many large trucks heading down, since we timed our drive poorly and coincided with the shift change. There was a great deal of backing up and waiting in turnouts and vaguely wide spots.
We had to give our names and cabin #s at Lookout Point to be checked off a list of folks going to close their cabins. We were told that the Mineral King trails were closed to recreating, and sent a few hundred yards ahead to wait for the signal to proceed.
When we were released, we encountered crew after crew brushing along the road and over the bank. There were big pick-ups, trucks, and really big trucks along the road and in the road, so we crept along in between and around. I didn’t take many photos of people as we passed because it felt rude. I missed one great shot of a crew all lying on the road and the bank during a break, but it is seared in my memory.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are several thousand words worth of the drive up.
looking back downThis is looking back down the road behind us.
It was smoky in Mineral King, but we were greatly relieved to have arrived in a place of peace.
Tomorrow I will tell you more about our weekend of uncertainty.
