Fall in Mineral King

Warm sunny fall days in Mineral King . . . a transitional time, torn between 2 places. I could be gardening at home, but I can still be hiking in Mineral King. I’ve been gone much of the summer, I miss home, but the cabin is still open and it is nice up there. 

Choices and consequences, decisions, saying yes to one thing means saying no to a whole bunch of others.

We were up the hill last weekend and these are some fall sights.

Lots of wood, but not enough is split. We have more fires in the stove in the fall and sugar pine burns up quickly.Fortunately, it splits easily.Alrighty, then, let’s go for a walk. (Not a hike – used too much energy swinging an ax? Nah, just lazy.)

I helped Trail Guy close up a neighbor’s cabin – such solid shutters.
The water in the east fork of the Kaweah seems just as low as it did in the falls of drought years.
Very heavy currant crop this year
A neighboring cabin isn’t quite closed for the season, but has that “almost over” look.
Tall grasses and a more yellowish coloring on things say “Fall”.
The cottonwoods are turning.
I love this tunnel of yellow.
Very low flow of water at Soda Springs, tall grasses, that golden look over all. . .
Pink?? What is this? Dried out something-or-others. Definitely not golden.
Just three months ago it was too scary to cross this stream (Crystal Creek).
A stock party lost a bag of grain along the trail.
A hiker lost his group, and Sierra the Trailhead Ranger is on her way to escort him back while Trail Guy demonstrates the path that we saw the search helicopter take. You can tell it is fall because he is wearing long sleeves.

Cabin Drawing Flag Adjustment

A flag seems like an appropriate topic for today.

The customers were sort of happy with their Mineral King cabin drawing, but not overjoyed. “Sort of happy” is not good enough. After a bit of conversation, they said the flag was too bright and drew too much attention.

My dad liked to quote a Latin phrase De gustibus non est disbutandem, which translates “it is useless to argue over matters of taste”.

I completely understand. A drawing is never finished until the customer is completely happy. While they were present in the studio, I redid the flag. Now they are happy!

Before:

After:

Because I did the flag in bright colored pencils before discussing it with them, I used Faber Castell’s Polychromos, an oil-based colored pencil that erases. Although I am very comfortable with the colors of Prismacolor and they are sitting very conveniently on my drawing table, they are wax-based colored pencils that don’t erase, so I resisted the urge to use them.

Phew.

 

Hiking Mineral King – Empire Again

Some friends were visiting and had never been to Empire. We planned to go, woke up to horrible smoky conditions, waffled a bit, and then went anyway.

Smoke from the Pier fire (near Camp Nelson) blew over Farewell Gap during the night.
Even more smoke visible down canyon toward Three Rivers. Are we supposed to be breathing this stuff??
Trail Guy is quite happy that there is still flowing water, even in early September. That green makes me happy.
Like father, like daughter. A pleasure to hike with these 2 friends!
This is semi-sorta the view in the mural I painted for the Mineral King Room of the Three Rivers History museum. It’s also an excuse to show more of the green.
That isn’t Sawtooth – I don’t know its real name but it is often referred to as “Sawtooth’s Shadow”. Mostly I was pleased to see some blue sky.
It was a little hard to tell if we were seeing smoke or a coming storm, but the thunder told us the truth.
Trail Guy to Techie Friend – “Wow, that’s cool.” Techie Friend to Trail Guy – “Does your Jitterbug take photos?”
This old wagon road up on the side of Empire never fails to amaze me. Those old miner guys worked so hard and found no gold.
Father-daughter hiking team
The others headed over to inspect some old mining debris; I headed toward the trees because the rain was coming and I wanted a head start.
City Girl was THRILLED by the rain and hail!
Trail Guy prefers a garbage bag to the heavier alternative of a poncho.
Is that Gandolph down in the bunkhouse ruins??
Rain stopped, so we followed the tram line back down to the trail, past the ruins of an old ore bucket.
The rain cleared up the air, somewhat.

Hiking Mineral King – White Chief Part 2

White Chief might be the most beautiful place accessible by foot from Mineral King. Short hike, steep, lots of variety. Any time Trail Guy encounters someone along the trail below the Eagle Lake/White Chief junction, he tells them they will be happier if they choose White Chief. 

Here are more photos from our Eclipse Day White Chief walk/hike.

What is this flowering shrub??
What is this teensy darker version of a Baby-Blue-Eyes??
What is this unknown yellow flower??
Slow but handy way to fill a water bottle.

There are more photos, but they were on Trail Guy’s camera because I overworked my battery. Aiming at the sun may not have been such a good idea. . . 

More tomorrow? Stay tuned. . .

Hiking Mineral King – White Chief

The eclipse. Big deal. Lots of chatter. Lots of ideas. Lots of rah-rah. What to do about it in Mineral King?

Easy! Poke a hole in a piece of cardboard with an ice pick, get a piece of white paper, and walk to White Chief. 

I say “walk” because I elected to not carry a pack or food. My camera was in my pocket, and a water bottle was in my hand. Let’s go!

Neither Trail Guy nor I had ever used a device like this. We both decided that if a “pinhole” (ice pick sized) is good, then why not a larger hole?
The answer is that the small hole works; the larger ones do not. We have a theory on why this is, but it will take too long to type.
I couldn’t tell the difference between light from an eclipsed sun and light when high clouds are obscuring the sunshine.
See the light in the ice-pick-sized hole? The moon kept eclipsing the sun for awhile, although I was hard-pressed to tell without the device.
Trail Guy insisted that the light was different from just a cloudy day. He’s observant and artistic like that; me? I just bumble along.

Since the steepest part of the hike was behind us, we decided to just keep on trucking up the trail into White Chief. The day became very crystal clear.

When this thick cloud passed over the sun, I aimed my camera at it. Does this look like an eclipse?

To be continued. . . tune in tomorrow.

New Mineral King Old Paintings

Because 6 Mineral King oil paintings sold at the Silver City Mountain Resort (AKA Silver City Store), I painted 4 new ones.

Seems like bad math or poor production to you? Labor Day is a mere 2 weeks away, and this means the season is almost finished. Part of the business of art is making tough decisions like this. That’s why I earn the Big Bucks have the freedom to spend lengths of time in Mineral King.

I could have painted more to have on hand, but I can paint more when it isn’t so hot in the painting workshop/studio. 

The 2 matching paintings in different sizes were begun before summer started. They’ve been waiting their turn. I’d rather be walking on that trail than painting it.

These are the 2 most popular Mineral King subjects that I paint and sell through Silver City. The 3rd is Sawtooth, by quite a distance. The top is the Honeymoon Cabin, which serves as a little museum for the Mineral King Preservation Society The bottom one is a private family cabin with Farewell Gap in the distance, as seen from the bridge at the end of the road.

These need another layer and some wildflowers.

Alrighty then!! The top painting is 6×6″ ($60 + tax unless you live in another state) and the bottom is 8×8″ ($100 – ditto on the taxes). When they are dry enough, they’ll be for sale at Silver City.

 

Hiking Mineral King – Eagle Lake, part 2

The rock section of the Eagle Lake Trail is very challenging if you were just expecting a little walk in the woods. Sometimes you have to wiggle your feet between some boulders, sometimes you have to just guess where the trail might be, sometimes you walk on a slab of granite, and none of it is very easy.

There are rewards: this is “Heather”.

After the rocks, there is another section that I forgot about. It isn’t too hard, but you have to watch your step because of all the roots. Trail Guy said there needs to be more “trail checks”, which are things that catch rocks and dirt when water is flowing down the trail; otherwise, all the fill dirt washes down the trail, exposing the roots of the trees (none of which show in this photo- you’ll have to trust me on this.)

Eagle Lake is one of 4 lakes dammed by the Mt. Whitney Power Company so they could control the water flow for producing electricity. Trail Guy is heading out over the dam; doesn’t it look like a lovely inviting path?

Welcome to Eagle Lake. Wish I’d brought some M&Ms. We earned them.

Trouble is, now we have to retrace our steps.

I think of the Eagle Lake Trail as “roots and shoots”, because there are zillions of roots to trip over, and all those rocks required lots of shooting with explosives to make the trail. The evidence is in those star-ish shaped dealies on the rocks.

“Ridiculous!”, said Trail Guy, about the condition of the trail.

The vertical meadow below the sinkhole and above the trail junction to White Chief was still full of a variety of wildflowers.So interesting that Eagle Lake is the most popular Mineral King hike destination, and it is probably the very worst trail. Our conclusion is that people like the name, have no idea what they are getting into (it’s only 2.4 miles one way – how bad could that be?? Try 2+ hours to walk it and then decide for yourself!), and most people want to go to lakes.

Hiking Mineral King – Eagle Lake

Remember that I said the last time I saw Eagle Lake it was empty because some stupid hon-yock opened the dam? I didn’t want that to be my last view of the place, so I told Trail Guy I wanted to go there, and I hoped he would join me. 

He consented. I asked why he dislikes that hike so much; his reply is that the trail bed is horrible.

As usual, he was right.

We started around 8:45 a.m. on the Eagle/Mosquito Trail. It’s 1/2 miles from our cabin to the junction of White Chief Canyon. 

This is the prettiest area of the trail – flat, usually full of wildflowers, running water alongside the trail, shade, and TONS OF MOSQUITOES! So unfair. . .

Was it just 2 weeks ago that this meadow was completely full of Jeffrey Shooting Star? Now it is full of knotweed, but it is white so makes no impression in a photo.

We climbed through an area I had completely forgotten about. I knew the rocks were coming, and forgot about this buffer zone.

See? The rocks.
I looked back at Sawtooth and its shadow, but I didn’t turn into a pillar of salt.
Apparently the rocks aren’t all that stable.

After I navigated over/around this big boy, I caught up to Trail Guy standing by this:

I said, “WESTERN EUPATORIUM! I haven’t seen this in years, and the last time was on the Franklin Lake trail!”

Trail Guy probably thought I was a little delirious.

To be continued. . .

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.)

And sometimes Trail Guy comes home, especially if the Giants are on teevee.

Not the Giants; Samson wants to know why the Giants’ games are blocked out in our zip code.