I spent a day in Visalia with a friend, and we walked around downtown, marveling* at the changes from when I worked there 35+ years ago.
We snooped. Climbed to the roof and took photos all directions.
It wasn’t clear enough to see the mountains to the east. I realize these photos will mean nothing to people who aren’t from the area.
We marveled at a building that has been completely remodeled since the olden days when I worked nearby. the owner happened by at the time, recognized both of us, and gave us a tour. I didn’t take any photos inside.
We also ran into another friend of ours. Visalia is the Big Town, the county seat, but Tulare County is still small enough to feel at home, even in the Big Town.
*I have verbed** the word “marvel”, which may actually be legitimate.
**And now I have verbed the word “verb”, which definitely does not pass a grammar test.
Looking upstream on the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River.
Looking downstream on the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River. There is one almost indiscernible red tree in the distance.
I painted that view with that tree about 15 years ago.
Naked ladies, still going strong. Odd.
There is a yard that we can count on to have wonderful fall colors each year.
Comb Rocks.
This is a deep canal for discharging water when the power plant makes electricity. I think they are not operating any longer. Personnel shortage was the reason we heard.
Jimson weed (looks like giant morning glory minus the vining capability)
This is where the water goes when SCE isn’t making electricity.It ends up in the river, and the people with this yard get their own personal stream.
Looking downstream, this time from a slightly different angle, which shows another red tree.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JB! (IF YOU ARE STILL ONE OF MY TENS OF READERS AND EVEN IF YOU AREN’T)
I have become (and am becoming) friends with a group of bloggers from all over. Elisabeth in Nova Scotia puts together something called “Cool Bloggers Walking Club” each October, and the participating folks send her photos of their walks each week. Her idea is to get us all moving our bodies for a minimum of 10 minutes a day. I am the only blogger I know in real life, and it helps me to get to know other folks who blog regularly. It is good to have other people to learn from (and occasionally help, but they usually know much more than me.)
Today and tomorrow I’ll show you some photos from recent walks. (Yes, I am still working. . . but there isn’t anything bloggable about it at the moment.)
Hmmm, mine bloomed in August. Why are these just now showing up in October?
The Catholic church has such peculiar architecture. It is one of my easy walks.
In the storm last week, the elephant appeared on Alta Peak.
Hurry up, Time Change. It used to happen around this time of year; now it doesn’t happen until November, so my neighbor and I walk by flashlight many mornings. Yes, two churches in our neighborhood, and we go to yet another one 2 miles down the road.
That’ll do for now. Sorry it isn’t about Mineral King. That’s a seasonal topic, and that season is over for this year.
We went walking up the Mineral King valley in search of brilliant fall color. This was easy to find, so many yellows, but of course we wanted oranges and reds too.
The cottonwoods are yellow; it is the aspen which turn orange and red, so for stronger colors one must walk farther up the trail than rather just hanging out near the pack station.
We call this the Yellow Tunnel.
The cottonwoods look so faded when viewed from the other side.
Crystal Creek is still flowing. The colors are very subtle looking up the ravine.
We spotted some orange through the cottonwoods, so Hiking Buddy and I continued on up the trail while the men turned back to begin tackling the chores of cabin closing. Not only do they close our cabins, they also close cabins for neighbors and are responsible for the water system for our little neighborhood, which they take very seriously.
That orange turned out to be a little disappointing. It was only the very edges of these few trees. (You might have to squint to see it here.)
But these trees were electric!
Franklin Creek was so tame, especially compared to my August adventure with K.
Each year in the fall I am determined to learn what shrub turns red. In the summer when it is green, I don’t notice it and don’t remember my annual autumnal intention.
Somewhere over there is where K and I were scrambling through the rain, cold, and hail to find our way home. We knew where we were going but not our exact route.
One last look at the Park’s packing shed.
WHAT? How did I miss this piece of brilliant advice all summer??
What I want to know is this: will a bear leave if I simply shout “BEAT IT, BOZO!” or do I have to say “GET OUT OF HERE BEAR!”? Who taught the bears to obey this command?
The next day was closing day. It was very cold, low 40s while we completed our chores and buttoned it all up for the season.
This is how it looked back toward Mineral King from partway down the road. Snow was expected up there. We closed in the nick of time. (Who is this “nick”?
Just for fun, this is the scenic spot where we stopped for some lunch on the way home.
It is always a bittersweet time. While we believe that summer goes way too fast, it is always a relief to be home, to stop driving that wretched road, to be able to go to church on the weekends, to keep up with emails and texts, to not be continually living in flux with duffle bags in plain sight, and to not worry/wonder about the water system or bear break-ins (in both locations.) Besides, we miss our cats.
If you read my posts last week, you saw the variety of fall color in Mineral King from year to year. This week I will show you all 2025, mid-October. Not much chit-chat, just some photos. Today is a walk up the Nature Trail, which originates at the upper end of Cold Springs campground.
The trees weren’t all brilliant yellow, but it was a brilliant clear sunny afternoon.
I don’t know what this shrub/tree is nor if the berries are edible. This is the only place I’ve ever noticed this in Mineral King. This just in: Greene’s Mountain Ash—THANK YOU, GC AND PICTURETHIS!
To clarify, Mineral King is still open to the public, officially closing in another week (sorry, don’t know the actual date). Trail Guy and I closed our cabin over the weekend, and just in time too. This week will be full of catching up at home and in the studio, so I’ll just fill this week of posts with Mineral King photos and chit-chat.
Heading up the hill, I did a quick drive-by of looking upstream from the Oak Grove Bridge. Supposedly this fall is when the county will begin tearing up the landscape upstream to prepare the way for a new bridge. The old one will become a pedestrian bridge only, not that there is any place to walk on the road. It just happens to be a beautiful historical structure in Tulare County, which doesn’t have very many of those.
How it looked on Friday, just aiming upstream into the sun. Next time we drive over it on the way up the hill (unless we make an unplanned trip) this will be all torn up.
We passed these types of scenic views on the way up. The road construction continues through the fall, and I don’t know when they’ll finish this year. The project is supposed to last through 2027.
Because of the fires in 2020, 2021, and 2024, there are clear views to Sawtooth (unless it is cloudy or smoky or smoggy or. . . )
Trail Guy and the Farmer stopped at the cabin owners’ dumpster to see if it was full. Hiking Buddy and I opted to walk up the Nature Trail to our cabins. (What? Would you rather hang around the dumpster, discussing its capacity, waiting for the dudes to make a decision and then have a ride up the final mile?)
More on fall color along the Nature Trail tomorrow.
The photos from Friday and these photos today were all taken within the first 2 weeks of October each year. I just arbitrarily grabbed different ones from my very extensive photo collection (34,000? maybe 36,000 now?) so you can see the variety from year to year.
I did not choose my very best or think about an equal distribution of scenes. Instead, this is just a random selection to give you a sense of the inconsistency from autumn to autumn.
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024 (after the fire – we were evacuated on Labor Day)
I stayed home last weekend. Our cabin is a summer residence in a summer place, and I am very ready to be home for awhile. So, I went through my photo archives, and today’s post will be random October photos of Mineral King from past years.
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
That was interesting. Let’s do a few more next week.
The weekend began with a surprise visit by a childhood friend. I knew she might be coming in the fall, but so many people tell me their potential visit dates that I don’t even try to keep track. That meant it was a wonderful surprise, and I got to spend an hour or so with her and her offspring. Since this is the World Wide Web, and because I want to experience and value life even when it isn’t documented and publicized, I took no photos (except for asking her daughter to take one of us together, which I HOPE her mom will send to me!)
The road construction continues. We waited just below Wolverton Point for about 45 minutes for the 10 o’clock pilot car shuttle which we followed to Silver City. SEE THE NEW SCHEDULE BELOW.
A neighboring cabin had 8-10 hazard trees threatening their place. We went snooping, and all is safe now (but the cabin is exposed), and there is a boatload of downed wood, a real mess. Here is how part of it looked as drawn for The Cabins of Mineral King and how it looks now in real life.
It rained several times and was overcast. We did not hike. People who live in Mineral King just hang out sometimes. Instead of being on vacation, we are simply experiencing cabin life.
We thoroughly enjoyed the warmth from the wood stove, trying but not succeeding to keep a fire going all day. That stove wants feeding fairly often. I would have split more wood, but we kept covering the woodstack due to the rain.
We walked to the pack station and found an enormous tarp all wadded up, and the stock was gone. Couldn’t just waste that tarp, because chances are we paid for it with our tax dollars. So we folded it up and then put it in the storage container.
I saw this trimmed mule hoof on the ground, and the snow stake is now installed for viewing on the winter webcam.
Berries are ripe in the fall. Don’t eat the white ones. Trail Guy loves the red ones, Wax Currant.
There is a specific type of mistletoe which grows in red fir trees. It is weird stuff.
Look at these two huge chunks of the red fir that got dropped a few weeks ago. They got randomly placed in our neighborhood after being moved from the road. One has a thing attached that had something to do with phone lines. I didn’t photograph the messes from the dropped trees, but know I will be dragging brush and sawing limbs for a long time coming.
Now, the funnest of the fun things: I FINALLY* met Kevin Alltucker, author of The Mules of Mineral King, a book that I told you about back in August. He graciously accepted a gift of my Wilsonia book, and then his brother said that he (the brother) is one of my tens of blog readers. This gave me the idea to do this dorky photo (me dorky-looking, clearly too thrilled to think about posing better or controlling my grin) and remind you all who like Mineral King to BUY THE BOOK! It is so well-written. It was also fun to talk about the logistics of writing, publishing and (not) marketing one’s own books with a fellow self-published author.
The Mules of Mineral King is available through Riverfeet Press, (also at that big online store which begins with A and takes a large bite out of an author’s profits.)
