White Chief is our favorite destination in Mineral King. Most people want to go to a lake, and they are welcome to struggle to Eagle up that lousy trail. We’ll wave goodbye as they turn that direction, and then head up the steeper but shorter trail to White Chief. It’s hard to calculate the distance, because sometimes we are happy to just break into the canyon, which Trail Guy calls a “dry lake”. You can go as far as all the way to the head of the canyon, which might be 4 miles one way. Just guessing. . .
Is that a white blooming bush ahead?
Nope, just bright sunlight hitting glossy leaves.
We shouted this back to our friends who turned back at the junction (the kids were just taking a morning constitutional while wearing pajamas).
I saw a new flower in the middle part of the canyon, where the trail crosses over the creek. It was very hard to photograph, and the best I could do is this, barely adequate for identifying. However, I concluded that it is Little Elephant Head, very similar, as one would suspect, to Elephant Head. Weird.
The flowers were terrific as we approached the place where the trail crosses the creek.
This might make a good cover photo if I publish a second edition of Mineral King Wildflowers. No promises.
We crossed the creek, and tomorrow I’ll continue this topic.
This time of year I spend lots of time in Mineral King, AKA The Land of No Electricity or Internet (unless you have StarLink, which we do not). So, my posts might be a bit erratic. Today’s post is simply photos from a walk down the road to Cold Springs Campground (now open after several summers of closure) and back up the Nature Trail.
Fireweed is prolific along the road above the Ranger Station.
Yeppers, aspen along the Nature Trail.
Sharon, my most regular commenter, named this Iron Falls.
You can count on seeing Indian Paintbrush along the Nature Trail near Iron Falls.
Walking on rip-rap is the worst part of the trail.
Sawtooth is the signature peak in Mineral King, although it can be deadly. RIP, Drew.
Tomorrow we’ll go to White Chief again.
In case you were wondering, I am working a little bit. I stop by the Silver City Store to check inventory and sometimes I hand out business cards to people I meet along the trails. (Hi Walt and Steve and the other guy from Hanford—hope Steve made it home without any more altitude discomfort.)
Sometimes I need to leave Mineral King for the peacefulness of Three Rivers. MK is a very social place, and although I have decent social skills (please allow me this illusion), I am an introvert who needs a copious amount of solitude.
The hazard tree crew has been working in our neighborhood.
I love the evening light coming through to the corn lily and grasses. It is especially nice when these folks are present and have their flag flying. I’ve drawn that a couple of times.
I called the drawings “Dawn’s Early Light”, because most people won’t be familiar with the direction of the cabin or the lay of the land. The first one was done long ago when my web designer put watermarks on my art (as if anyone would want to steal it, or as if we could prevent such a catastrophic occurrence.) I think I used the same photo for both drawings.
There was no time for hiking, but Hiking Buddy and I took what we shall refer to as two different “morning constitutional walks”.
First one: Timber Gap/Monarch junction
On the way up
On the way back
Second one: White Chief/Eagle/Mosquito junction
Heading up
Heading back (Timber Gap in the distance)
July and August are busy in Mineral King, particularly among the cabin folks.
Today’s post is just a handful of photos in Mineral King. I recently went to Hume Lake instead of Mineral King but understand that my audience prefers seeing and reading about Mineral King. No offense to Hume Lake people—just accepting the identity of my blog readers. The first best summer of my life was 1978 at Hume Lake. Then my first summer at Silver City (4 miles below Mineral King) in 1985 became the Best Summer of My Life (and that was even before I met the love of my life.)
Mineral King has rustic and unique cabins. I recently had the opportunity to spend time at almost every one. It was a work thing: another cabin owner realized the need for propane tanks to have their cabin numbers visible on the tanks. We discussed press-on numbers and stencils; hand-painted numbers were the simplest solution. Nope, no photos of the numbers, just two photos of things that struck my fancy.
Rustic, but undergoing a few repairs. Those stone steps really grabbed me (not literally—don’t worry!)
Unique—the light was uncooperative but if you study this, you’ll see that the chimney was built to abut this boulder.
Why is this horse standing with his front feet in the trough? Some questions just don’t have answers.
This road leads to the pack station, then becomes a trail. In the olden trails (when Trail Guy was just a boy), people could drive past the pack station and even go up to Crystal Creek and cross it! In their cars!
Maybe I’ll do a post on Hume Lake. . . more will be revealed in the fullness of time.
There really are only so many potential titles to a repetitive blog topic. This could be “A Day at the Easels”, but I chose to paint flat on the table, or holding the canvas in my hand. It could be “A Day with an Audio Book”, but then I’d have to make a book report.
Let’s just get on with it, shall we?
Paintings are selling steadily at the Silver City Store; the main subjects are the Crowley cabin with Farewell Gap in the background, the Honeymoon Cabin, and Sawtooth. I wanted to paint something DIFFERENT, and after my recent hike to White Chief, it was an easy choice.
This isn’t White Chief but it is the trail to White Chief. I took a nice photo of Trail Guy with three cabin neighbors as he led them to White Chief (they haven’t spent much time at their family cabin—as a result, they needed a guide*). Because I don’t know them very well, it seemed prudent to keep their faces off of the World Wide Web. However, I thought the trail was quite nice in and of itself.
Break time! Oh look, there’s my favorite cat, Tucker, “hiding” in the tall grass.
This may look finished to most folks, but it wants another layer and more detail to satisfy your Central California Artist. (It is 8×10” in case you are wondering how I got so far in half a day of painting.)
Now, it’s time to paint White Chief. This is not how it looked in early July, although it could be how it looked in early July of a wet year. Can’t remember. . . I’ve slept since then. Besides, Trail Guy took my reference photo for this 8×10” painting, so I wasn’t there.
Yeppers, right on schedule, Jackson showed up and meowed at me. When I didn’t respond, he was fixin’ to bite me, so I hauled his 20+ lb. self onto my lap for a bit. He pretended to enjoy it, but put his claws in me** so I would just feed him already.
Like the trail painting, this requires another layer and more detail.
It was an altogether satisfying day of painting, one that flew by with that audio book. (Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate, in case you are curious.)
*They could have simply followed the trail but they would have missed out on a wealth of information.
**Not mean-like, just that thing cats do when they purr. He isn’t mean when he bites, only insistent and bossy. Downright domineering, actually.
Walked? Hiked! I carried a daypack with water and lunch, so I’m calling it a hike. So what, who cares? I went 7 miles on my numb feet, that’s what. Yea! I can still hike (maybe not far, but I’ll take what I can get here.)
Let’s just have photos, with minimal commentary and zero whining.
Spring Creek has a foot-bridge.
The White Chief trail is very steep. I followed these fine fit folks up and was thankful for the frequent Trail Guy/Guide and photo stops.
Everyone’s favorite juniper
I’ve painted it seven times.
Once you break into the canyon/dry lake bed, it’s much easier walking.
We didn’t go into the mining tunnel; can you see it? On the far right, in the center.
Once again, I forgot to put a dime or a quarter in my pack for size comparison. These are TINY.
Bye-bye, White Chief. It was GREAT to see you again!
Entering White Chief, oil on wrapped canvas, 12×16”, $375
Since this is my business blog, here is my painting of Entering White Chief. It is the picture I chose for the publicity of my upcoming show Around Here, and Sometimes a Little Farther, opening August 7 at the Tulare Historical Museum and Heritage Gallery, 5-7 p.m.
Because yesterday was Independence Day, today’s post is a bonus. I wouldn’t want anyone to miss out on a weekly Mineral King update!
“Hanging out” has ceased to be slang; what terminology did people use before this?
We don’t hike a lot anymore. Bum knee, numb feet. Walking is good enough for now. We headed toward the upper valley on this trail which was a road during Trail Guy’s childhood.
There were a few stray carrots lying on the ground, which Trail Guy retrieved to feed the stock.
A mule or two usually get out of the corrals. This causes many questions: 1. How? 2. Why? 3. Why just one? 4. Can’t some Park Packer Person make the fence tighter? (I’ve learned mules can leap pretty high, but I’m not convinced.)
We encountered some friends at Crystal Creek WITH A DOG. Everyone knows this is against National Park rules, or do they?? These fine folks were being very careful about it all, but if other people see them, they’ll assume dogs are okay if they are on a leash. Nope. It might be okay in the National Forest, but Mineral King is in Sequoia National Park, where dogs are not allowed on trails.
If you don’t want to get your feet wet crossing Crystal Creek, go a little above the trail and balance on those sticks. (I just walked through, as usual.)
My destination was Franklin Falls; Trail Guy’s knee along with his dislike of straight up-and-backs caused him to turn off the trail while I powered upward.
If you want to cross Franklin Creek, this is how the dry boulders arranged as stepping stones look.
I turned around and met up with Trail Guy just above Crystal Creek. The flowers were excellent, as one expects during late June, early July in Mineral King.
The rest of the photos are from meandering around, nothing noteworthy other than peak season in Mineral King.
So many shades of green.
This is sort of interesting: like beachcombers, we find all sorts of things while meandering around. This time it was a Benadryl Itch Relief stick, a blue carabiner, a fork, 3 grommets from tarps, and a large bottle of water sitting by the road.
Three Rivers will be getting a pharmacy again! Maybe, if governmental regulations and insurance companies don’t block progress. We are supposedly getting the golf course back, along with 2 restaurants in town, but between the Keyboard Warriors and the county regulators, the delays are legion. The French bakery and a high-end hotel gave up because of these hateful people who block progress, who don’t accept the precept that “a rising tide lifts all boats”. STOP IT!!
2. In just one Canadian province (Nova Scotia—Hi Elisabeth!), there are 2 time zones, one of them only 30 minutes later. That would be highly annoying! From Elisabeth: “. . . there is actually only one time in Nova Scotia (AST) which is 1 hour ahead of E.T. But in Newfoundland (a nearby province) it is AST + 0.5 hours. So if it’s 12:00 pm in New York City, it’s 1:00 pm in Nova Scotia, but it’s 1:30 pm in Newfoundland.” You probably already know that there are 4 times zones in the contiguous 48 states, and Hawaii and Alaska add 2 more.
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3. Intermittent Fasting is an eating fad that is supposed to slow aging and keep blood glucose lower. I’ve been trying this, nay, doing this for a month. The idea is that you only eat within an 8 hour window, and fast in the remaining 16 hours. It is sort of hard, but I am learning how to manage, hoping that “closies count”. I won’t know if it is worth it for another 2 months. Oy vey.
4. The week before I acquired a new-to-me car, a friend (Hi again, Elisabeth!) posted a link to a post on this website about life lessons from driving a manual transmission car. I learned that driving a manual transmission is more automatic to me than driving an automatic. I am in mourning, while at the same time feeling very grateful for a newer car.
5. Did you know that the second ingredient in seasoned salt is SUGAR??! Boy am I mad.
6. A site called BookCrossing is a worldwide community of readers who share books and then track where they are. If I had nothing else to do, this might be fun. However, I have more than enough just keeping up with the people I know in real life, along with a handful of not-yet-met friends, so keeping up with my books after I read them isn’t going to make The List.
Why was there a pickleball on my morning walk in a neighborhood without a court?
Sunday morning’s temperature at our cabin was 33°. This was on the second day of SUMMER! My 7 year old neighbor and I discussed the fact that the seasons don’t always follow the calendar.
Because it was unseasonably cool, we opted to walk up the usually hot and dusty trail toward Timber Gap, Monarch Lake, Crystal Lake, and Sawtooth. Nope, those were not our destinations; we chose to go to Groundhog Meadow. It was just a walk, not a hike. (Hikes have backpacks with food and water; walks are just walks.)
The parking lot was full of cars protected from marmots by blue tarps. Usually the marmots have ceased their automotive destruction by this date, but most people don’t know this and aren’t willing to take chances.
The trail is steep with giant steps for the first 1/4 mile or so. After passing the turn to Timber, you eventually come across this funny little spring, just shooting directly out of the side of the mountain.
I remembered the trail wrong: I thought there was a long straight section, with more steep steps to the so-called meadow. Instead, it was more steep steps to a long straight section that led to Groundhog Meadow. Our little friend viewed it as a hike and carried a pack in spite of my explanations. This girl makes up her own mind.
Groundhog Meadow is a weird name to me. What meadow? And aren’t they marmots, not groundhogs? Who named this place? This is Groundhog Meadow, which to me is simply a stream crossing.
Being close to the beginning of July, which I view as the peak wildflower season, there were good wildflowers.
If you take the old Sawtooth trail, it leads to a nearby meadow; maybe this is Groundhog. Sure has a good view of Sawtooth!
There is one dicey part of the trail pretty close to the stream crossing on the way up. Here it is on the way back down.
Boring unknown white flower. . . if I do a second edition of Mineral King Wildflowers, will this make it into the book?
Hiking Buddy and I walked up to Crystal Creek. It has all gotten so lush and green in just the 3 weeks since I was last in Mineral King. Some of the ferns might croak due to the low temperatures, and a few of the lupine looked droopy.
Crystal Creek looks low, but it is because after the wet winter of 2023, its course changed to three spread-out sections across the trail instead of one charging stream.
Ugh. So many dead trees. Drought? Some sort of beetle that takes advantage of a weakened state? We’ve had some decent winters, but the preceeding dry winters have taken their toll.
Indian Paintbrush was the dominant flower on this walk. That’s Timber Gap in the distance, in case you need help getting oriented.
This is looking up the trail toward Farewell Gap, Vandever in the distance.
Thus we conclude another Mineral King report—walks, not hikes, grateful to be able to walk, wearing my latest hiking Crocs, called All Terrain Atlas Clogs. These have thick soles and I think they’ll last awhile.
(Take that, stupid Peripheral Neuropathy! You can’t stop me from walking on trails, so there.)
