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.
Last month I had my head in the sand or something. This month I did so much learning that I’m publishing this post 1/2-way through the month, with the (always reckless) assumption that there will be more to learn in the second half of the month.
TECH
My iphone is too old for a new battery because of planned obsolescence. It still worked but only charged intermittently, and although it is an inferior camera because of pixelation, it was able to capture colors and light better than my PHD (Press Here, Dummy) Canon Elph. Thus, I bought a “pre-owned” (remember when we used to say “used”?) iPhone 14 (the latest version that will work with all the portable charging equipment I just spent too much money for) to use both as a phone and as a camera (like normal people do). There is much to learn, since it has no home button, and things just work differently. Good grief, life is So Very Complicated.
2. The new solve-all-your-problems iphone goes straight to voicemail without ringing. When I asked the Duck, the first answer is that it can take up to 72 hours for it to be ready to ring (to “finish porting”.) To quote my Dad, “Humph”. (It fixed itself, so the Learning here was to just wait.)
3. When I told a friend about my tech decision and the need to find a used iphone 14 for photography, she told me about a site called Swappa. Have you heard of this? BestBuy in Visalia had the phone for $399; Swappa has them for $200-$400. Even in this decision, there are many more decisions to be made—14, 14 Pro, 14 Plus, 14 Pro Max.two lenses or three lenses? Locked or unlocked? JUST STOP ALREADY! (Is this why I frequently escape into fiction?) Forget it. I bought mine in person at Best Buy where 2 different very nice helpful and mostly knowledgeable people helped me. (and I read a library book while I waited for all the transferring to finish.)
4. I learned to transfer all the stuff from the old phone to the new one, along with how to set up email in the new phone (by carefully copying all the weird nonsensical answers used on the email account on my laptop, including everything that said “optional” because no, it’s not optional; you MUST fill in all the blanks.)
5. When emails arrive and say “This email has no content”, I can drag the message out of email onto the desktop and the text will appear. No one understands why, so I’m just glad I found this workaround instead of automatically deleting those emails.
Neighbor cat sometimes walks with us.Pippin, GET OFF THE ROAD!Tucker loves his grass.
6. Buy It Now is a way to put an easy button on my blog that takes people to Paypal to buy things. That’s great if the item is available. However, I learned (the hard way) that people can search out an item on my blog and the Buy It Now button still works in spite of no longer having the item. This meant that I also had to learn how to go through my PayPal account and delete every Buy It Now button.
7. Because of this Buy It Now button situation, someone ordered copies of Trail of Promises, which was out of publication. I learned that because I have the computer files for both the text and the cover of the book, it can be reprinted one book at a time (AKA Print-On-Demand) on Lulu.com. So, now Trail of Promises is once again available!
BOOKS
8. I learned about a book by some people called America’s Cheapest Family. If it is interesting enough (and if I remember), I’ll tell you about it next month.
9. Trail of Promises is available again after a several year hiatus, thanks to the marvelous print-on-demand services of Lulu.com. This book is a well-written true adventure story, my favorite of Louise Jackson.
10. The Visalia Electric Railroadalso now available on Lulu.com. Even if Tulare County history doesn’t float your boat, I think the book is worth it for the photos. Here is my favorite one:
11. Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, finally has a new book out: The Calamity Club.It is based during the depression and is a depressing story with a good ending. Hard to put it down, gave it 5 stars on GoodReads, but I don’t want to read it again.
MORE INTERESTING & MORE IMPORTANT
12. Davidson’s fritillari is a brand new-to-me flower in Mineral King. My new friend TC discovered it, marked the trail so I could find it, and then it still took me forever to spot it. What color would it be under in a wildflower book??
13. Restaurants, especially fast food types, have been closing because so many people are taking those appetite suppressant drugs. People are changing clothing sizes so quickly that stores are raising their prices to compensate for all the lost revenue that results from all the exchanges and restocking.
14. My friend Bill, William R. Winn, M.D., died. We spent 10 years working together on his two books, Tales of TB and Springville’sHospital. When we met, he told me it was “hard to get through one’s eighties”. He missed age 90 by 3 months. I will miss him for a very long time. Such a fine gentleman, humble, kind, eager to learn, determined to not be beaten by tech or health troubles, persistent, focused.
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.
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.
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.
This is Hume Lake as seen from the footbridge that crosses Ten-Mile Creek on the end of the lake toward the dam. For the past eight summers, I’ve had an idyllic reunion with a childhood friend at her Hume cabin. It is modest and rustic, and our times there are a real bright spot in life.
“Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.
That’s a song that we sometimes sing together, especially when we are out in a rowboat on the lake. We also have been known to sing “When Sammy Put the Paper on the Wall”, “Kookaburra”, and a round with 3 different parts including “Fish and Chips and Vinegar”.
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 WallflowerNo ideaDandelions
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 bloomThe 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.)
May isn’t over yet, but since tomorrow is Friday during Mineral King season, May’s learnings are a little early.
Actually, I learned the first item in April, but since April’s Learned List was FOURTEEN ITEMS, I pushed it over onto May. May is a little lighter on learning than normal. Guess I read too many novels or slept late too often. . . Yes, May still has several days left for learning, so it is possible a few things will spill over onto June.
1.Gopher Hawk is the name of a tool that catches gophers. It is easier to set than the old Macabees traps, which I have only successfully set one time. It is expensive, but seems to be effective. I first tried a borrowed one without the tools to get it in place; when I read more about it, I ordered the whole trapping set (BEFORE I learned that our local hardware store sells it). Like everything, it takes a little practice and a lot of patience. I might need to order a second one, because the cats are catching squirrels instead of gophers this year so far. Gardening is war.
2. A stained glass window from a childhood memory is a story that I will tell you more about when it is closer to being finished. Here is a peek at this lovely artifact hanging behind that chandelier on someone else’s deck.
3. Waymo is something I heard about from a friend who traveled with an elderly couple in a city. She and the woman needed to get somewhere when their car wasn’t available, so my friend used Waymo. What is that? It is basically a driverless taxi. Yep, you get into a car that has no driver and it takes you where you ordered it to go, using your phone, of course. This blew my mind, and I blurted out, “NO DRIVER! I can’t even stand driving an automatic!” For me that is NO WAYmo.
4. Small town living: in reading an article from This Evergreen Home by Mike and Mollie Donghia, I realized that living in Three Rivers still has many of the benefits of “the good old days”. You might enjoy the article.
5. This quote on happiness from economist and philosopher AdamSmith caught and held my attention:
“What can be added to the happiness of a person who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?” Source: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)(with thanks to James Clear’s newsletter)
I ordered a box of Springville’s Hospital books to be shipped to the author’s wife. When the notification of shipment came, it was shipping the books to MY BANK IN THREE RIVERS!! WHAT? HOW? WHY? I didn’t recognize the address so I looked it up on the internet. When I saw it was my bank, I called them to let them know that they’d be getting a package meant for someone they never heard of. Instead of it landing neatly where it belongs, I will have to retrieve it from the bank and then drive it down the hill. I have no idea how this address got onto the order. I’m flummoxed (and a bit irritated at all the automatic stuff that computers do, thinking they are being helpful, if they can be said to “think”.) At least it is going to my bank and not a vacant lot.
Blogging Alone Since 2008
I know no one else in real life who blogs. Through the years, I have made some friends across the continent who blog about as much as I do. None blog about the same things, but all are people I’d probably hang out with if we lived close. They all have much bigger followings than I do, and several have paid ads on their sites which provides income. In spite of having hundreds (or thousands?) of readers, they have been so kind as to comment on my blog, become email friends, and occasionally exchange mail, real mail, the snaily kind.
Check out the postcards I’ve recently received from two friends! On the left is from Elisabeth, of Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist and on the right is from Michelle from MG Doodle Studio. Both are taking a blogging break right now, like I expected to do, but the thoughts keep flowing so I’m still posting.
Writing notes and letters is something I’ve done my entire life. Writing thank you notes was very very difficult as a child; as it morphed into letter writing, it became a habit, one that I have never stopped.
The Kaweah Post Office is no longer operational. For years it was the smallest operating post office in the USA. It held on as long as it could, and now it is just a sad relic.
The more people become accustomed to texting, the more precious a hand written note will become. “No one has ever cherished an email”, read an ad for high end stationery many years ago. (Crane’s Crest—anyone else remember this paper?)
Stamps are going up in price again, maybe as high as $1 each. Sounds frightening, but considering that I can hand a piece of paper to someone and it arrives in the correct place a week or so later, for one lousy dollar, just ONE DOLLAR, it seems rather astonishing.
Unless, of course, your computer tells the sender to take it to your bank instead of to the intended recipient.
“Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, ‘What should be the reward of such sacrifices?’ … If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!” —Samuel Adams(1777)
