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 […]
Walking to Crystal Creek in MIneral King
The Crystal Creek crossing is about 1 mile from the parking lot at the end of the road in Mineral King. It is relatively flat and easy. We don’t even pretend that it is a hike and it barely passes for exercise. But recently I’ve been thinking that as one ages, one’s body produces and […]
Cabin Life
I misled you yesterday when saying we’d visit my short wussy walks in Mineral King. Instead today’s topic is Cabin Life: what in the world does one do in a place with no electricity, internet, or phones? These are the photographical items on the agenda: 2. Help people hold down their porches. 3. Go exploring […]
Trail Guy Went to Timber Gap (in Mineral King)
Where is Timber Gap? It’s on the north side of the Mineral King Valley. A “gap” is a low spot on a ridge or between peaks where it is natural to cross over to the other side. I suppose it is synonymous with “pass”, but in Mineral King we call them “gaps”: Tar Gap, Timber […]
Trail Guy Went to White Chief
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 […]
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. […]
Business in the Mountains
The Silver City Store sold two Mineral King oil paintings on opening weekend; a few days later they sold a sequoia tree painted on a wood panel. Luckily for a future customer, I had one more ready to go. So, on the way up the hill last week, we stopped by to deliver it. While […]
Opening Weekend in Mineral King
This post will be photo heavy, with some captions for clarity, since a few folks among my tens of readers have never been to Mineral King. (It’s a special part of Sequoia National Park accessed by its own road.) Cold Springs Campground is closed for an undisclosed reason (hazard trees?) but you can walk through […]
Mineral King is Open
And the summer begins … I didn’t take any of these pictures, which were all taken before I went up the hill, because living in two places comes soon enough without pushing it. Our cabin is a summer dwelling, for good reasons. Hence, the Early Bird, AKA Trail Guy, took these photos. (You can tell […]
And Another Little Painting Session
My plan was to get serious about the remaining five Mineral King oil paintings, to focus, finish, and move on. I started with Sawtooth, the 6×6” version that Reader Sharon expressed an interest in. Look at this succession of color mixing. My goal was a light brown, something that might be called “taupe” by the […]