The Mineral King Road is a doozy. 26 miles (I think, but maybe it is 25), much of it a cliff-hanger, no fog lines, rails, center stripes, and in some places, no shoulder.
The lower 10 miles is under county jurisdiction, the upper part under the feds (national park). About 13 miles of the upper part is under construction and has been for a couple of summers (and one winter) now.
Let’s have a brief pictorial tour.
In 2023, some flooding erased lower parts of the road. You can read about it starting with Walk on the Mineral King Road, then Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four
The temporary bridge has been in place since 2023. Sometimes I wonder how truly temporary it is—will it still be in place when I want to come back down the road??
This is what a temporary bridge looks like. The boards are weathered, and they bounce when you drive over them.
This bridge might also be temporary; it is supposed to remain in place as a pedestrian bridge while a stouter, sturdier one gets build upstream. I think this is a joint project between the county and the feds, but who knows? And who knows when it will begin or get completed? Rumor has it that the project will begin this fall, but I’ll believe it when I see it. The sign calls it the Kaweah River Bridge, but since there are 5 forks to the Kaweah River, locals call it the Oak Grove Bridge. Technically, it is the East Fork, but people don’t need to know directions any more because they have a talking lady in their phones to tell them where to go.
This is what most of the county part of the road surface is like. They have done a little bit of patching this spring, but it is probably a losing battle because of all the heavy trucks and construction equipment.
The Potholes, not to be confused with the potholes in the road, are still running strong for early August. Our theory is that the fires (2020, 2021, 2024 all run together as bad fire years so I don’t remember which one burned which areas) destroyed many of the trees above that used to suck up the water.
Yippee skippee, road work ahead for 13 miles.
This sign about ending the county maintained road used to get graffitied regularly, with the prefix “un” added to the word “maintained”. Now we feel a little bit sorry for the county road workers, and they did actually do some patching this summer.
Notice the suddenly smooth road surface.
Don’t get used to it; it only lasts about 6 miles. Look how it made the water trough at Trauger’s look short.
The paving gets all patchy —washboard to loosen your fillings or perhaps cause the stereo to fall out of your car or your CD to skip (shut up, some of us still have stereos that play CDs, so there), gravel, and occasional new asphalt, all the way to High Bridge, where the Really Outrageously Terrible road surface begins. Nope, I didn’t dare stop for photos.
Some of my long distance blog readers may be wondering why we drive this road every week in the summer. Here is your answer.
Any more questions?
P.S. Anticipate a car at every curve, and STAY ON YOUR SIDE (unless you can see clearly ahead and want to straighten some curves, which I recommend).
An unpaid advertisement
This is a reminder that The Mules of Mineral King (is available on Kevin’s site and on the big A— The Mules of Mineral King.
