Sort of Doing Nothing in Mineral King

Since I saw moving purple spots last time I tried to hike, the next time I went up the hill, I stayed closer to the cabin. Perhaps it was just an excuse to be lazy; on the other hand, maybe I was using my noggin.

I left home around 8:30. It now takes me almost 2 hours to get the approximately 26 miles to the cabin, so an early-ish start is beneficial to having a not-too-hot drive and getting there with enough time to have a full day. It’s been awhile since I photographed my favorite bridge, 6.5 miles up the road.

It wasn’t an entirely do-nothing stay. Our wood stove supply was getting low; Trail Guy tossed a bunch of chunks toward my chopping block and said, “There! That ought to keep you busy for awhile.” I said, “Half an hour, tops”. Good guess. Prolly took just as long to stack it.

We walked to Crystal Creek, and then a little farther. (No moving purple spots—thank you for your concern.)

First, a stop at the pack station. Trail Guy likes to make sure the water troughs are full.

The old pack station building is a disaster. If anyone points this out to The Park, I guarantee that the answer will be “We are short staffed”. My inclination is to say, “Get off your duff and off your screen and get your patoot out into your areas of responsibility and for Pete’s Sake, DO SOMETHING!” I wisely am keeping my yap shut.

Next stop: the creek where the packers used to cross with their strings of mules. Yeppers, the water is low. It’s August.

Onward.

I still marvel that Crystal Creek has held to its new course after 2023.

I opted out on the off trail stuff because of the the meat bees, which make nests in the ground.

Instead, I inspected a few things, experimented with the iPhone as a camera, trying to understand how to get it to focus.

These are cottonwood trees; the iPhone called them “poplars”. Maybe they are in the same family.

Back to the cabin, and no, this is not our cabin. I don’t show our cabin, because this is the World Wide Web, and we are already inundated with visitors, all friends, but inundation is inundation. (You may quote this piece of brilliance).

It was a short stay. I missed Tucker, and he missed me.

cabin life Mineral King

In the Sierra, but not Mineral King | At Hume Lake

Each summer starting in 2017, I’ve spent time with a dear friend at her Hume Lake cabin. Most years we gather in June, last year in July, and this year in August. It was HOT, REALLY HOT, so we didn’t rent any watercraft or walk around the lake. Mostly we just hung out in and around the cabin.

We strolled along the lake, hoping to find a place to wade in. However, the level was lower than usual, and wading meant mushing through mud, so we passed on that option.

The Rest of a Story

If you live in the Central Valley, you may have heard that a Hume Lake cabin burned in a storm last February. It was one of the boys dorm-like cabins, which caught fire when a tree fell on some wires. It has been temporarily replaced with a couple of huge tents, WITH A/C IN THEM!! Camp has certainly changed since I was a happy camper. (We only viewed the tents from a distance.)

I got up one morning and followed the road to the bridge over Ten-Mile Creek, the main feeder into the lake. The lake is so still in the morning.

There are Forest Service cabins along that stretch, and of course I speculated about knocking on doors and leaving notes with a business card and price list on each one. Maybe next year. . . but prolly not.

I was very heartened to see that the Forest Service is doing a lot of mechanical thinning. Forest management is the way to stop many of those devastating wildfires.

In case you were wondering where some of the things are, or how far away, this sign might be helpful. This is the way I usually leave Hume rather than driving through Grant Grove and past Wilsonia. Then I drive the Generals Highway through Sequoia, straight home without having to drop down into the valley.

This is looking up Ten Mile Creek from the driving bridge.

Ten Mile Creek, as viewed from the footbridge on the trail, which is downstream from the road.

This is the view I used in my 2026 calendar for June. It looks different this year.

Meanwhile, back at the cabin, my friends were fixing to take a walk later that morning, hopefully before it got too hot. Nothing too strenuous, just exploring a bit through the cabins. These things caught my attention.

It was too hot to go to the Little Brown Church. We briefly considered it, but none of us were wearing proper shoes for that much steepness. Here is one other post about it.

We went to The Tree House, something I’ve heard about for years but never seen. WOW!! This is in Wagon Train, which is the little kids’ camp. The big groups are finished for the summer now that school starts so early for most students, so we were free to poke around.

It is made partially from old barrels, so the sides are convex and things are purposely curved. It is reached by a very slick suspension bridge and has many levels. It is utterly charming, kind of Disneyesque.

Then of course we meandered through the wagons, and I was astonished to see how many have been added since we last had the opportunity to go exploring. It was in 2020 when the camps weren’t operating.

We did a little bushwacking, a bit of crosscountry meandering and ended up at another suspension bridge, this one leading to a fort on an island in a very sluggish green muddy stream.

There was a lot of time just lollygagging around the cabin, catching up with one another, knitting, and talking talking talking talking talking…. I love these friends, the cabin owner’s cousins, a certain neighbor, the whole thing.

Let’s wrap it up with some lake shots, and then I’ll shut up about Hume Lake for another year.

Mineral King, (But it’s not Friday!)

Sharon, I scooted over so the small red fir doesn’t block the gap, but then the boulder is centered. (Paintings fix these flaws.)

In order to do my August calendar picture post and the Learned-in-July-List in a timely manner, this week’s Mineral King report is landing on the wrong day. Flex with me, Readers!

It was a time of many people in our neighborhood, with much socializing and renewal of friendships. I felt as if I fit in, never mind that my buddies were 8 and 10.

I did no real hiking, only walks. It is weird to me that I resist going on something as pleasant as a walk with friends. . . cue the whinging. . . it’s too hot, I want to knit, this is a good book. . . When I push myself to get off my duff (what’s a “duff”? Dunno, it came from my dad’s vocabulary), it is always worth the effort.

These guys were tired. Horses and mules don’t often lie down. I wonder if the one on the right is named Spot

The destination was Soda Springs, about 1-1/2 mile from the bridge, an unmarked trail known to locals but occasionally frequented by other folks. It is a spot where we often take visitors when we want them to actually enjoy the walk instead of dragging them straight up one of the other trails or hauling them behind us for long distances to lakes.

The flowers continue to amaze and delight this year with their profusion, abundance, and variety.

Soda Springs is a peculiar little spot of water bubbling out of the ground. People swear that it is carbonated; I think it tastes like the drinking fountains at Hartland Camp when I went to summer camp there. Ick. Metallic.

The flowers!! Looking upstream:

Looking downstream:

Let’s end with an evening shot of Farewell Gap with the Crowley Family Cabin.

Dadgum giant boulder hogging the center foreground. . .

Walking Down the Mineral King Road and Up the Nature Trail

Gird your loins—this is a long post.

With my new-to-me iPhone 14 in hand, I walked down the Mineral King Road to Cold Springs Campground (STILL CLOSED—CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN OR SOMETHING!) and back up the Nature Trail. This is about 2-1/2 miles total.

Let’s look at the flowers I found along the road. I actually did this route on two consecutive days and was very surprised by how many flowers vanished and new ones appeared in just 24 hours.

From left to right: mariposa lily—a ruffled variety I’ve never seen before; angelica (not to be confused with cow parsnip because angelica has lacy leaves); buckthorn

This view at the top of Endurance Grade always grabs me. Endurance Hill. Coral Hill. Whatevs. It photographs much better with the phone than it ever did with the camera, as much as it pains me to admit.

Most people prefer the view of Sawtooth. Sawtooth isn’t my favorite, but I paint it over and over because most people like it—they haven’t been medivacked off it*.

I love penstemon, particularly this variety. The color just slays me. Maybe I should learn the actual variety name.

A little past the ranger station, we cross the neglected bridge into the closed (WHY?) Cold Springs Campground. (It’s kind of fun to flick off the flaking paint. No, I am NOT telling you to do that! Why would I tell you to do that? Do you think I’m immature or something?)

Here are some yellow flowers on the other side of the bridge: seepspring monkey flower and false lily of the valley.

At the upper end of the closed (WHY?) Cold Springs campground is where the trail begins. It used to have lots of interesting and helpful signs along the trail. The Park removed them all with the plan of upgrading them, but it has been about 10 years so I don’t think it is a priority. (The Park will say, “Hiring freezes! Understaffed!” to which I have many opinions which I will keep to myself in order to keep the tone of my blog elevated.)

At least the beginning of the trail has a nice sign.

This is a Jeffrey pine, which used to have a sign explaining how to tell the difference between Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines and inviting you to sniff the tree, because Jeffreys smell a tad like vanilla.

Aspens are thick along the trail.

Can you see the trail? It’s definitely overgrown. Last week we saw a trail crew guy and I asked if I could prune it for them. He actually said, “If you want to!”

Blog Reader and Top Commenter Sharon calls this “Iron Falls”.

I finally remembered to put a dime in my pocket so that you can see the scale of wildflowers. I didn’t take into account how: A. difficult it is to photograph the 2 side-by-side with only 2 hands; B. to keep my hideous thumbnail out of the photo (yea for cropping); C. to make the phone focus on the blossom instead of the leaves; D. to actually see the screen. Maybe you are supposed to tap the bloom on the screen, but already being shorthanded, this is beyond my capability.

The little footbridge got rebuilt last summer, or maybe the one before. It all runs together.

More Sawtooth

And just in case you are into Sawtooth (Hi, Kathy Wolfe!), here it is one more time, peeking around the ridge, before the phone battery died**.

OIL PAINTINGS OF SAWTOOTH

WAIT! THIS IS A BUSINESS WEBSITE! Here are some oil paintings of Sawtooth available this summer at the Silver City Store (unless they have sold already.)

Sawtooth #67, 8×10”, oil on wrapped canvas, $165

Sawtooth # 68, 6×6”, oil on wrapped canvas, $75

Sawtooth #69, 8×8”, oil on wrapped canvas, $145

*It was 50 years last week so you’d think I’d be over it. I am, but it still isn’t my favorite. So there.

**This is the biggest disadvantage of using a phone instead of a camera. I also bought a charger, but it only works when it feels like it. The frustrations of tech are endless.

Mineral King mineral king hiking Mineral King Nature Trail Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings Sawtooth sawtooth oil painting

Trail Guy Went to White Chief

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.

There is a pond, if you know how to find it. (It’s there even if you don’t know how to find it.)

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.

Mineral King mineral king wildflowers White Chief wildflowers

Clear and Cold in 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.

(That last photo is Sawtooth.)

Mineral King

Late Spring Wildflowers in Three Rivers

We had a perfectly beautiful spring day in April after March’s unseasonable heat wrecked the green and prematurely caused most wildflowers to croak.

Buckeye trees actually are quite fragrant.

Mariposa lilies aren’t all that common in Three Rivers; we usually see a little different variety of this elegant lily in abundance in Mineral King. Some years I’ve seen a deep red version at Hume Lake.

This is a brodaeia called “pretty face”.

Mustang Clover—often it is white with a faint touch of lavender.

This isn’t a wildflower around here; it is a tamarisk tree, and this is the first time I’ve ever noticed it in bloom.

See? a perfect spring day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TLC!!

Three Rivers Three Rivers wildflowers wildflowers

Can’t Let Go of Spring

Spring happened early in Three Rivers this year. It also seems to be ending early. It is hard to comprehend that Farewell To Spring began blooming around the lake at the end of March, when normally they don’t appear until the end of April or beginning of May.

You may have noticed that I am a little obsessed with the flowers growing in the wild and the ones blooming in my yard. By the time this post is appearing, all of these will be toast.

On the front porch; I think these are called Queen’s Tears.

Early early early for the climbing roses—normally they appear at the end of April.

A last hurrah for these iris. . . I think I’ll plant even more next fall. (Greedy? yeah, maybe)

In the orange grove of a friend, where we like to glean oranges, particularly when they are in bloom. Citrus is unusual in the plant world in that the blossoms and the fruit can be present at the same time (depending on when the fruit is picked.)

Around the time that the rest of the wildflowers and the green fade, I can always count on finding these penstemon on a regular walk in the neighborhood.

Fading fast. . . sigh.

This one would make a nice painting, and if I substituted poppies for the common madia, it might even sell.

The fiesta flower takes some of the pain out of spring’s end.

Okay, I’m tryna be brave here. ‘Posed to be working. Imma get something done besides obsess about flowers.

Maybe. Maybe I’ll stop speaking slang and straighten up and fly right now that spring’s distraction is ending.

Three Rivers

Morning Walk in Three Rivers

This was on March 26, so things already don’t look like this. Spring goes too fast, particularly when we get early days of heat.

And look at my yard when almost everything bloomed at the same time because of the early heat.

Spring will end soon, and I will remember that this blog is supposed to be supporting my art business, not just a place to gloat about being able to live in Three Rivers in the springtime.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

Even More Spring in Three Rivers

Okay, it’s just pictures of spring in my yard. And I took these photos 2 weeks ago. Just hanging on to every last drop.

Herb Garden first. Why do I have an herb garden? Because when we first moved to Three Rivers, I was desperately looking for anything the deer wouldn’t eat. Eventually I cobbled a series of fences together to protect this little area, but the soil is poor, and it gets zero sun in the winter while baking in the summer. So, herbs mostly work.