mineral king wildflowers

A Long Walk in Mineral King, Part 3

Are you all rested after the lunch break and ready to make like a cow-pie and hit the trail again? (Never mind. We weren’t on a trail yet.)

These Paintbrush (formerly known as Indian Paintbrush) were almost flourescent.

Maybe one day I will look for these little whites and actually find a name.

After our lunch break among the yellow unknowns, we crossed a little spring or drainage, a wet place that I named Everything Spring. Every possible wildflower was there and in bloom. EVERYTHING.

Look at these Elephant Heads! This was my first oh-my-goodness moment at Everything Spring.

Paintbrush, Angelica, Jeffrey Shooting Star, Tiger Lilies, Larkspur, Rein Orchis (weird word, I know), Elephant Heads, Crimson Columbine, Knotweed (not in any particular order in this list – just wanted you to see all the names)

Red, white and blue (with some pinky-purple for an accent)

One last look at Everything Spring, because there were still 4.5 miles to go.

After Everything Spring, we crossed a snowfield. There is still a ton of snow around Farewell Gap. It has a bit of a pinkish cast. Off-Trail Guy tested it to be sure it wasn’t some sort of collapsing snow bridge. It was slippery in my worn-out Teva sandals. (Sandals on snow are funny, but didn’t qualify for a photo.)

Tomorrow we shall conclude this long walk (AKA hike).

Mineral King mineral king wildflowers

A Long Walk in Mineral King, Part 1

Actually, it was a hike. We went to White Chief, over the ridge to the Farewell Gap drainage, down to the snow survey site, crossed the stream on a snowfield, found our way to the Farewell/Franklin Trail, and then 4 miles back to the cabin.

This footbridge across Spring Creek is immensely helpful.

Is this a dandelion? It looks different. You know how I feel about all those look-alike yellows!

This is for Jess; I miss my tree-hugger friend. We stopped here to put on mosquito repellent, just before getting into the lower White Chief canyon.

Looks easy here, but there are three steep sections to get to this place.

Mountain Jewelflower is sort of nondescript but was everywhere. The leaves show up more than the blossom.

Mountain Pride or Pride of the Mountains – either name is just as pretty.

Off-Trail Guy and his beloved Tiger Lilies

This post is getting too long, kind of like the hike was. To be continued. . .

Mineral King mineral king wildflowers

Short Mineral King Walk

There is a trail in Mineral King called “The Nature Trail”, a one mile route that connects Cold Springs Campground (near the Ranger Station) to the Mineral King valley itself.

There was a meeting in the area near Cold Springs Campground, and I took the Zapato Express*, choosing to go down the trail instead of the road. We normally walk down the road and back up the trail, but I thought I’d probably be catching a ride back up and I didn’t want to miss the progression of summer along the trail.

The river is flowing steadily, a lot of water for August.

Many yellows look alike, in spite of the name of the yellow chapter in my book. I might be able to identify this, eventually.

Aster? Glacial Daisy? Something else? It was pale lavender, not the white it appears in this photo.

These are a bit different. Smaller, and a clump instead of a long stem, and growing in a dry area instead of a wet one, also lavender.

It wasn’t a requirement to wear a straw hat to the meeting, but you wouldn’t know by this photo.

Someone in her upper years of life requested a ride home in the 2-seater Botmobile, so I got to walk back up the trail, not a hardship by any stretch of the imagination.

Yarrow in the foreground; Black Wolf falls (Monarch Creek) in the fuzzy background.

Almost back to the cabin. The flowers are just endlessly fabulous this year. (Nope, not my cabin in the photo. This is the World Wide Web, and I try to maintain a teensy bit of privacy.)

100 page paperback, flowers in photos, common names only, lots of chatty commentary, $20 including tax.
Available here
Also available at the Three Rivers Historical Museum, Silver City Store, from me if I put them in my car, or Amazon.

*This means I walked; “zapato” means shoe in Español.

Mineral King mineral king wildflowers

A Walk to Eagle Meadow

We crossed Spring Creek on the footbridge. It has a ton of water for the 2nd half of July!

How a knot looks from inside a hollow tree.

I split a lot of firewood, and have learned how to read the wood to work with the knots. Knots are just branches, but I have never seen inside a hollow tree before to see the entire branch, or what the end of a knot looks like.

This is Eagle Creek as it runs into the sink hole.

Water disappears into the Eagle sink hole, and we strongly suspect it is the source of Spring Creek.

This is one of my favorite sections of trail in all of Mineral King, EXCEPT the mosquitoes and biting flies are always horrible here. This is the area where hikers decide if they are heading to Eagle Lake or to Mosquito Lakes (there are five).

There were still patches of snow on July 21.

This is Eagle Meadow, and the flowers did not disappoint.

Jeffrey Shooting Stars grow in water (hence, the many mosquitoes).

There weren’t as many flowers as we expected along the trail, because it is still early-ish, due to the heavy winter and late spring.

I like the color combination of Indian Paintbrush with sage.

This flower seems to be everywhere except in my many wildflower books. This time I was determined to find it and I did! It is called a Stout-beaked Toothwort. (I am not making this up!) Really, People-Who-Name-Flowers, couldn’t you do better than this?

The Mariposa Lilies were thick, and the slopes looked polka-dotted with them.

Neither one of us is a fan of the upper part of the Eagle Lake trail, and it was a hot day, so we turned around and got home in time for lunch. Thus, I have called this a “walk” instead of a “hike” (although Trail Guy carried lunch, just in case.)

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Timber Gap

On July 4, Trail Guy and I hiked to Timber Gap. The flowers were early, but abundant, and the gap still had snow. We met a couple of hardy backpackers who planned a long trip in a short number of days. Then we took the old wagon road out of Timber Gap, and traversed the slope back down to the trail.

Mineral King valley view from the trail.

This little nondescript stream was flowing quite strong beneath Empire.

The Phlox were thick, along with Blue Lips.

Trail Guy was explaining things of Mineral King to two hardy backpackers.

The old wagon road was built by the miners and used to get to the mines on Empire. We use it to create a sort of mini-loop on an otherwise up-and-back trail.

This view from the old wagon road is one of the reasons to take this hike.

Trail Guy likes the word “traverse” and picks good routes for me to follow.

While traversing down to the trail, I watched the ground carefully. It was not a hardship view.

That snow-packed area in the distance is White Chief.

Mineral King mineral king wildflowers

Mineral King Wildflowers is the name of the book I published in March of this year. In it, I said that most of the wildflowers in Mineral King hit their peak in July. This year it might be even truer, because the June flowers are still blooming in July. But perhaps the July flowers will not happen until August. More will be revealed in the fullness of time. Here is what was in bloom last week.

Sierra Star Tulip (overexposed photo doesn’t show the detail – might I suggest that you buy a copy of my book?)

Tomorrow is Independence Day. I will be silent on the blog, but will return for July 5, more Mineral King wildflowers.

Mineral King mineral king wildflowers

Mineral King Wildflowers Book

Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names arrived yesterday!

The cover photo is by Jessica Barr. All the interior photos are by me and Trail Guy.

A sample page from the blue and purple chapter

Every chapter has a few flowers at the end without names.

The price is $19.78, which includes sales tax. The odd number is because 1978 is the year that Mineral King became part of Sequoia National Park. If you order from my website, I’ll pay the shipping. If you order from Amazon, they will charge an additional $3.99.

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Wildflower Book Update

Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names

This is the title of my next book. “My next book” – What? do you think you are an author? Well, I make books, so maybe I am an author. My books are picture books, so maybe I am an artist who makes books. “Maybe”?

Sigh. It is hard to talk about oneself and sound informative and not self-absorbed.

Wait. I’m not talking about me; I’m talking about my next book.

Fine. Then get on with it, will you?

The design is solidified, finished, stick a fork in it and call it done.

The main blocks of words are the Preface and the Conclusion; both have been sent away for editing.

The cover’s first draft, has been sent to my designer nephew to make sure I haven’t made any gross errors. He said, “The layout is pleasing. It reminds me of some of my old calligraphy and lettering book covers.” I believe it was his polite way of letting me know my sense of style is out of date. I doubt that my customers will notice. They are all older than he is.

Next tasks: buy a bar code, write the back “blurb” (when did “blurb” become a word? AND I continue to puzzle over this most difficult task), rework the parts that have been changed during the editing, refine the cover design (oh boy, this involves downloading a template to use with Photoshop Elements on my old laptop, can’t wait), and finally, send it to the printer for one proof copy.

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Work That Doesn’t Feel Like Work

In my normally slow month of December, I finally had the chance to work on my upcoming book Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names.

It seems to be cooking along just fine, and then something goes wackadoodle with InDesign or the template ceases to do its templatish magic or it takes hours and hours to resize all the photos to the same effective PPI (you’d really rather not know) or some of the photos get corrupted and I have to keep moving the flashdrive back and forth between the 2 laptops or I realize the title page simply says “MK Wildflowers” instead of Mineral King Wildflowers . . .

You get the idea.

One morning I worked about 10 minutes on it and suddenly it was lunchtime. Then I put in about another 1/2 hour and it was dark out. Then another 10 minutes and it was 9 p.m. So, you see this is an engrossing and enjoyable project.

The worst part will be writing the blurb on the back. Have you ever tried writing about yourself? Don’t, if you are able to avoid it.

The plan is to have it in hand in April so I can do a book signing in the Mineral King Room at the Three Rivers Historical Museum before the Redbud Festival when people are in a wildflower state of mind. (Have you ever been in a wildflower state of mind? It might just be an idiosyncratic trait of this Central California artist.)

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Trail Guy’s Favorite Mineral King Hike

Sometimes I have to be down the hill, feeding Samson, watering the yard, blogging, drawing, taking care of business, fulfilling promises. Meanwhile, Trail Guy the Retiree is in Mineral King, hiking and taking photos for me to put on my blog.

His favorite place to go is White Chief. Mine too, unless it is the junction of the Franklin/Farewell Gap trails, or Farewell Gap itself. The lakes might could be, but we don’t go there much so I can’t remember. (I might could go there, but I’ll prolly be down the hill at the liberry instead.)