Seeking Wildflowers in Mineral King

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The trail to Franklin Lakes and Farewell Gap has terrific wildflower variety this summer.

Mariposa lilies are like polka-dots over the landscape, among the sage. Very prolific this year!
This is a juniper tree. It isn’t a wildflower. I just wanted to show you the bark.

This is the weird view of Farewell Gap with all the overlapping ravines.

Flax were plentiful along the trail, and the red ones are Indian paintbrush. The white ones? Meh. But I love seeing red, white, and blue together, so I took this shot looking down into the canyon.

There was a tremendous variety along the trail to the junction.

The pennyroyal were very thick and fragrant, as always.

I guess you had to be there to get a feel for all the variety along the trail. 

Sometimes Pride of the mountain grows on rocky ledges that don’t appear to have enough dirt for anything to grow.

Same for this penstemon, the variety which I have forgotten (did I ever know it?)

This trail junction was our destination, and it is usually solid with a zillion different flowers. This year it wasn’t special, but the trail getting to the junction was simply amazing with the variety.

This is looking back down at those overlapping ravines in the canyon.

Angelica was very impressive. It looks like cow parsnip, but its leaves are lacy rather than solid. Maybe that’s why it has a prettier name than cow parsnip.

Franklin falls is quite impressive in spite of the low water year. That is arrowleaf groundsel in the foreground.

Let’s end our tour with a rainbow.

I have about 4 copies of Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names remaining. Want one?

What Does an Artist Do in Mineral King?

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A more complete question is probably this: What does this artist do in a place without internet, email, cell service or electricity?

An incomplete list:

  1. Split wood
  2. Knit
  3. Read the Declaration of Independence (Have you read it lately?)
  4. Swat biting flies
  5. Check on the wild iris WHICH IS IN BLOOM!
  6. Meander through the parking lot and find a bungee cord
  7. Proofread a book that has been in progress for almost five years
  8. Swat mosquitos
  9. Hang out with friends
  10. Sit on the bridge
  11. Hike – and take more photos, tell other hikers about better trails, look for tiger lilies, all while swatting mosquitos
  12. Swat more mosquitos

Incomplete pile of photos from the list (minus the mosquito swatting):

This is a section of trail that I’ve been trying to paint for a couple of years without any success.

Labrador Tea, reliably found near the first switchback above Eagle Meadow.Tiger lilies are Trail Guy’s favorite wildflower and this group was the destination of our hike.


Sometimes Eagle Meadow is thick with Jeffrey Shooting Stars and Knotweed. This year is not one of those times.We did see the shooting stars a little lower down along the creek. This is so hard to paint but I will not give up. (Here is how the painting looked last December)Who photographs the trail bed? Your Central California artist, that’s who.This is the first time I have really noticed Glacier Pass, a place I never expect to see in person.There was a wide variety of wildflowers as usual right around the beginning of July, but not in great quantities.Larkspur are hard for me to photograph, so when the light is right, I keep trying.This might be bitter cherry. It is a tree. I don’t know trees very well.

Hoopes sneezeweed always looks a little bit worn out, even when it is brand new.

That wild iris, only found in one place in Mineral King, blooms at the beginning of July each year.I drew this cabin once, in pencil with the flag in colored pencil, and called it “Dawn’s Early Light”. I love this view from the bridge, especially in the evening light.
Penstemon are a close second to my favorite flower of Explorer’s gentian.

Mineral King After a Summer Storm

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Last week there was such a storm in Tulare County that the marina at Lake Kaweah experienced some real destruction: the docks slammed around, wrecked houseboats, the docks broke apart or sank or both, and five houseboats also sunk. Now they are just in these large jams and people can’t get to them. What a freak of nature storm.

I was down the hill; Trail Guy was up the hill. The evening after the storm, he took these photos in that beautiful glowing light called “the magic hour” by photographers everywhere.

A couple of days later he took these photos out on the trail. This first one is white flowers that I have never seen before. Maybe I saw them and thought, “White, meh”. But I don’t remember.

Making Stuff is Part of Being an Artist

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“Artist” can mean someone who makes stuff for fun and it can mean someone who makes stuff for a living. I’ve been the Stuff For Fun type of artist as long as I have been a functional human. The business end of things came later in life.

Look at this list of phases I have gone through: paint-by-number, woven potholders, lanyards, notecards with pressed flowers with wax paper and glitter, decoupage posters on grape trays, sewing, macrame, crocheting, tatting, quilts, grapevine wreaths, willow furniture, mosaic stepping stones, knitting, bread, yogurt, hummus.

It is deeply satisfying to be able to make useful and functional items, even if one quits the craft before achieving any great level of success. (Let’s not talk about those paint-by-number or potholder kits).

Nothing has changed. A week or two ago, on a day that was meant for oil painting, I had projects galore that were calling out for attention. None of my paintings have imminent deadlines, so I took advantage of a loose schedule.

Current Projects

Project #1 is to turn a discarded road sign into something attractive that reminds people to not race through our neighborhood.

Project #2 is turning a book into a hiding place. (Just a Reader’s Digest Condensed book—don’t get your knickers in a knot.)

Project #3 is PROTECTING SOME FLOWERS FROM THOSE BLASTED DEER IN THE YARD!  The shrub in the middle is a butterfly bush, chosen because the deer have ignored another one in the yard for several years. But here in the fake wishing well, one of those miserable creatures has been pruning this shrub with its teeth, and ignoring the petunias for some unknown reason. I planted more petunias, some statice, columbine, and something called “tickweed”. Then I pounded in these bamboo stakes, and later wrapped them with twine in a random, schlocky manner that I hope is very annoying to the deer. (I noticed that one of the tickweed plants had been unplanted and dropped on the ground. Those sneaky so-and-sos were sabotaging the new plantings while I was gathering supplies.)

A few days prior to these projects, Trail Guy moved a chair that was part of the herb garden fencing. It was gone for a short time before he put it back. Meanwhile, this is what happened:

We think Bambi was there all day before we noticed, so I hope he was traumatized enough to NEVER want to return.

My gardening efforts are a continual triumph of hope over experience.

Another Cold Weekend in Mineral King

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Some cabin folks across the creek registered lows of 20 and 21 degrees on their thermometer over the weekend in Mineral King.

Here is a little visible evidence.

A cabin across the creek from us keeps a sprinkler running, and it made a large patch of ice.

 

My ax froze in its bucket of water. We put it there when the handle gets loose so that the wood swells. (Froze my ax off?)

Here is the neighbor’s ice patch after the sun did its job.

The weekend was beautiful and clear. The parking lot was full of cars wrapped to keep out the marmots.

This marmot wasn’t interested in cars because he lives under a cabin.
The cold flattened the corn lily, AKA skunk cabbage. This mule belongs to The Park and is not interested in staying in the corral.

Crystal Creek was low. Nothing was melting up in the high country.

Brrr. We came home early where the weather in Three Rivers was moderate and comfortable.

Hume Lake Instead of Mineral King

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Every summer for the past handful of years, I have had the privilege of joining a friend from childhood at her Hume Lake cabin. She brings 2 other friends with her, and now they are part of the fun that I look forward to each summer. This is a different part of the Sierra than our other home in Mineral King, and it is more than just a geographical difference: the cultural differences are stark. This is not a good/bad situation; it is simply a different situation. 

We walk around the lake (3 miles on a well-used trail), rent a water something (rowboat, stand-up paddle board, kayak, canoe), walk among the fancy mountain houses (I can’t really think of these beautiful homes as “cabins”, part of the stark contrast to Mineral King), hear excellent speakers (a Christian camp with good chapel services), reunite with my friend’s cousins (now my friends too), eat too much, laugh until I fall down, talk late into the night, and sleep too little.

The journey this year had this dismal landscape for part of the trip.

The lake and all of Hume escaped last year’s conflagration.

On Saturday evenings after the campers have left, some of the staff race to the end of the dock and fling themselves into the lake. It looks different at different times of day, always picturesque. The dam which creates the lake is highly unusual. It was built in 1908, and the lake was created for transporting logs. My favorite part of the trail is below the dam where it is green green green. Or wait—is my favorite part of the trail where the wild iris bloom?

Or maybe it is at the beginning of the trail. I like the view from the bridge that crosses Ten Mile Creek. We like to walk to the top of the hill, and were blown away by the potential lumber. These folks believe in mechanical thinning, in managing their forest. Could this be why they have escaped the wildfires through the years? The view from Inspiration Point was somewhat obstructed by clouds this year.  And finally, this year our visit coincided with the elusive and magical red mariposa lily! (My friends may have been concerned for my mental balance when I insisted that we look for it, amazed that I spotted it, and puzzled by my enthusiasm, but one of them took this photo for me.)

Trail Guy Hikes For Us

Who is “us”? 

You, me, anyone who reads the blog but isn’t retired or on vacation in Mineral King. While I was painting walls inside Three Rivers buildings, Trail Guy went hiking in Mineral King.

He went up toward Timber Gap, and then to Empire, but not to the top, just a loop that gives good views.

While he was there looking at the mountains, I was painting the very same peaks in the Mineral King Room at the Three Rivers Historical Museum.

This is Ranger’s Roost, AKA Mather Point, looking through the timber of Timber Gap. When you are looking at Timber Gap, it is the bump to the left/west. The Mather Party came over Timber and saw Mineral King. I drew the cover in pencil and colored pencil for a book about it, but I haven’t read it. I just look at the pictures. (This was a second edition—the original drawing on the first edition went missing so the publisher commissioned me.)

There were a few flowers: shooting star, Western wallflower, phlox.

This is the rock outcropping on Empire that gives the false impression of being the actual peak. It is a favorite for enjoying alpenglow in the evening light.

Mineral King Is Now Open

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional cabin opening weekend. It is when Sequoia National Park unlocks the gate, and people begin backpacking and camping. Some years it feels like summer; some years it does not. This year was snow-free, but it did not feel like summer.

The classic view

This section was stripped of willows and other shrubs in the fire prevention efforts last fall. (I spent a ridiculous amount of time going through my photos to find one of how it looked before it got pruned to no avail.)

Monarch Falls and Creek are flowing well.

This is “Iron Falls” along the Nature Trail.

This is Iron Falls as recently painted.

The dandelions were prolific, bright, and charming (because they are not in my lawn).

This is the view of the stream that I painted 7 times over the winter in the Sawtooth oil paintings, and I took this photo in hopes that it will assist me as I paint #8.

This is painting #6 of Sawtooth Near Sunnypoint.

As now seems to be the norm, there were dogs coming both up and down the Nature Trail with impunity. No one reads the signs, and no one cares. (There is a dog in this photo, although it is sort of a “where’s Waldo” type of view.)

We had a super clear day to walk up to Crystal Creek and the wind was quite icy.

This is the section that I think of as the Yellow Tunnel in the fall. The cottonwoods were just beginning to leaf out.

Crystal Creek was doing its normal spread into about 4 shallow branches.

Thus we conclude my first visit to Mineral King for 2022. May there be many more!

Between Jobs

That’s “between paying jobs”. I didn’t charge my church, a decision I made many years ago—I will charge people in the church, but not jobs for the church.

What does an artist do when there aren’t commissions or upcoming shows? (Besides look out the window and contemplate matters of consequence).

(Or think about joining Pippin in a nap.)

(Or look out the window and wonder why this blooming shrub has the peculiar name of “pineapple guava”.)

Your Central California artist does these chores:

  1. Plan new paintings, based on the assumption (and experience) that current ones will sell, and the sellers will want replacements.
  2. Package notecards for a custom order.
  3. Balance the checkbook
  4. Sort through piles and toss or file all the stuff that seems to multiply in the dark
  5. Go to the bank (as a few checks trickle in)
  6. Write a few notes
  7. Contact drawing students who have missed for awhile to ask if they quit and forgot to tell me
  8. Write blog posts
  9. Answer the phone, learn of a request for a QUICK, CAN YOU HELP US RIGHT AWAY?, and dive in to planning the next job.

Okay, let’s roll!