Random Round-up Including Mineral King History

Today is a round-up of several topics, including Mineral King.

The 2019 calendars are selling steadily – $15 includes sales tax, and I am willing to eat the mailing costs, yum yum. (The Three Rivers Post Office is actually a pleasure to visit.) Yes, that is Sawtooth Peak on the cover, one of the most prominent landscape features in Mineral King. (“Features”, as if it is landscaped? Good grief.)

Ever try to type on a laptop with two purring teenage cats on your lap at the same time? Tucker kept a paw and his chin on the keyboard area, while Scout kept climbing around and slobbering a little. Not a very productive time, but it is a pleasure to have kitties around (except for the slobber part).

A friend wanted to ride her new Harley to Mineral King. She has good sense, and instead, chose to ride it to the Mineral King mural in Exeter.

Louise Jackson gave a talk at the Three Rivers library about why the Disney plan for a ski area in Mineral King failed and how it tied into the larger world. It didn’t fail for one reason but for a combination of reasons:

  1. Roy Disney, Walt’s brother, was the one who ran the business behind the scenes. He kept saying, “We are in the entertainment business, not the recreation business”. When Walt died at age 65 in 1966, some of the fire for the ski area died down. Walt was a skier; perhaps Roy wasn’t. . .
  2. The environmental movement was growing during that time; conservation and preservation became more important than development.
  3. The avalanches were a real problem, and when the big one happened in 1969 that took out cabins, killed a Disney guy and proved that managing the snow was potentially a huge problem, more of the wind went out of their sails.
  4. The road was too expensive to fix. The road was terrible. Still is. We don’t mind. 😎

The avalanche of 1969 crushed the store and rental cabins; Disney sent people in to burn all the rubble. The only little cabin that survived was the Honeymoon Cabin, also known as the Point Cabin.

Honeymoon Cabin #32, oil on wrapped canvas, 8×8″, $100 plus tax.

And finally, I have been working on a new book! Nope, I’ll tell you about it next week. . . see you on Monday!

 

Labor Day

Turning Leaf XVIII, 6×6″, oil on wrapped canvas, $64 including California sales tax

Remember in the olden days when Labor Day was the first day of school? You’d get up in the dark, put on new clothes, wear shoes for the first time in months and say, “Mom, these shoes are too tight!” to which she’d respond, “They are fine. You just aren’t used to wearing shoes”.

Then you’d stand out in front of the house with your lunch box (mine was Mary Poppins, and although I didn’t see the movie, I did have the record) and a cat or dog for a photo.

Photos were a big deal in those days, taken to commemorate Events rather than for routine and systematic documentation of everyday life. None of us knew what to do with our faces or our hands or our bodies when a camera was looking at us. Today all kids can instinctively arrange their bodies into professional look poses and with their perfectly straightened teeth and the confidence of a supermodel, they all look naturally beautiful.

Now school starts in early August when it is still hot. I think everyone wears shorts to school now, which were forbidden in the olden days except for P.E., which was required from 7th grade on.

I am very old-fashioned. There are no drawing lessons in July or August, and we resume on the Tuesday after Labor Day. (I even wear shoes, real shoes, rather than Tevas or Crocs and if you want, I can pose awkwardly with my cats for a photo.)

Anyone want to take drawing lessons? I have a few openings. . .

Back to work, all y’all!

Eight Things I Learned in August

Fridays are for Mineral King, but today’s post is my end of the month list of things I learned. Here is a Mineral King photo for you as a consolation prize.

  1. A friend of mine is always on his phone, always always always. But he only uses it as a telephone. For note-taking, he uses a yellow legal pad, which he refers to as his “y-pad“. I’m stealing this term!
  2. In August I learned the real difficulties of lung disease by helping my friend who is waiting for new lungs. Become an organ donor!!
  3. A friend is moving to Furnace Creek, the settlement in Death Valley. She learned that in the summer, residents turn off their water heaters and use it for cold water; their cold water taps become their hot water sources.
  4. Tulare Co. ranked 150 out of 150 in adults aged 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher, quality of the public system, and racial and gender gaps in local education. The study, by WalletHub, was of major metropolitan areas. Tulare County is hardly a major metropolitan anything, but the study combined Visalia and Porterville, the 2 largest cities in the county. Well, bummer. (We’re fat and poor here too. Oh, we also have really bad air. Sounds inviting, no?)
  5. Making Sense of God by Timothy Keller is one of the most helpful books I’ve read in a long time, and I learned more than this post can contain. If you are a skeptic or know one who is seeking solid truths about Christianity, this book is a winner. It requires thought and took me a long time to get through, and now I need to reread it and take notes for more solid remembering.
  6. For years I’ve wanted to find something cold to drink that had no sugar, no fake sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol. This was just a vague wish for something more interesting than plain water or herbal tea. At a block party this summer, my good friend said, “Ooh, this is not very good!” so I picked up her can for a taste. Wow! carbonation, no sweetness whatsoever, and a hint of berry flavor. It was LeCroix, nothing but carbonation and a hint of flavor. Eureka!
  7. Keeping cats is almost impossible around here. (We’ve lost four in 2018.) Now there are two – Scout and Tucker. Bye-bye, Piper. I didn’t even get to know you.
  8. If you need to get rid of an old couch, you have 3 options: dump it on the side of the road, drop it off after hours behind a thrift store that won’t take it when they are open, or take it to the dump. We took the third option, and it hurt my heart. Trail Guy salvaged the good fabric from the backside (the front was wrecked by cats through the years). The couch served us well from 1984 onward, and was reupholstered once. The only thing that helps assuage my guilt is that we saved two antique pieces of furniture from the same fate.
    Scout, who will NEVER have access to our new/antique furniture.

    Tucker, who also will NEVER have access to our new/antique furniture.

Lingering Wildflowers in Mineral King

I’ve spent more time in Mineral King than home working in August so the subject needs Friday as well as Monday next week.

Mineral King’s wildflowers peak in July, but there are still beautiful sights in August.

This dude is too busy to notice the stellar jay feather. He is a Lodgepole chipmunk.
Trail Guy on the Franklin/Farewell trail.
Yo, Bucky.
The flowers at the Franklin/Farewell trail junction are fading, but Bigelow Sneezeweed is still going strong.
We accompanied our good friend on the first four miles of her week-long backpack trip.

This girl can step out, even wearing a backpack that probably tops 45 lbs. I had to focus to stay on her 6, carrying my 4 lb. day pack. How embarrassing. When we got to the Trail Junction (affectionately known as the “Wildflower Cafe”), we had a snack, and then I announced that I had gone as far as I wanted to go.

I came to see some Explorer’s Gentian, and they did not disappoint.

They make the Sierra Gentian look boring by contrast. (Or perhaps my photos do that.)

Crystal Creek is slow and low.

Eight was enough miles for the day. We got back to the cabin before the sky opened up, and I got more knitting done. (Our friend probably was at her destination, hunkered down in her tent.)

It’s getting wet out there.

Life Policy

A wise man in my youth taught that one should have principles (which I call “policies”) in life that help you make decisions. One of my personal life policies is Never Turn Down A Chance To Go To The Beach.

You may recall that I have a friend who is waiting for new lungs. With our heat and smoke, she has been suffering greatly for the past 2 months in Three Rivers. To help you understand how much, get this: she hasn’t been upstairs in her own home for 2 months because the stairs are too much of an obstacle.

A friend of hers offered her use of a house on the Central Coast for the month of August. She needed a driver, an equipment schlepper, and a general caretaker, and yea, she asked me!! After some juggling, cancelling, rearranging, etc., I called her back. When she answered the phone, I simply said, “Yes”.  She may have screamed, which took too much oxygen. But, we made it. Here is a peek into our time together. Out of respect for the privacy of the homeowner and my friend, I’ll keep specifics off the World Wide Web.

We were overwhelmed by the beauty of the location and the beauty of the house. She sat outside and breathed the cool clean air while I got all the stuff situated
When I got down to the beach, I saw a whole jellyfish on the sand. Usually there are only squishy parts of these creatures.
This creature kept looking at me. I walked it multiple times a day, and any time we were in the house, I said to it, “Stop looking at me!”
What?? More jellyfish on the sand?
Really strange stuff.
Previous occupants have found seaglass and shells.
Stop looking at me!
A big victory was getting my friend to the sand. Actually the bigger victory was getting her back up the steps. This trek will be a daily goal, with the hope that she will get strong enough to actually make it down to the water;s edge.
Really??
This walk, these colors, scent, feel – it is why never turning down a visit to the beach is one of my life policies.
What is going on around here??
Finally. Something other than a dying jellyblobfish.
I love my friend and she loves me. What a pleasure and a privilege to spend time together! (I’m trying to hide the O2 tank in the picture.)

Another Post About Mineral King

Perhaps I should only write about Mineral King because it is the most popular topic.

Nah. . . this website is expensive, so it needs to contain things about my business. But today is Friday, and Fridays are for Mineral King posts (when I have something to show and tell).

The reddish areas are not burned trees; it is borate, a fire retardant.

When I drove up the hill on Tuesday, July 24, there was a huge lit sign at the bottom of the road saying that there was a fire 15 miles up the road and that no backpacking permits would be issued. It looked like a nothing-burger, but I am very very glad that the Park was suppressing it with all their available resources, because who knows what those bad boy fires do when crawling along the ground, or smoldering in roots?

That evening, we strolled over the bridge and admired the evening light. 

The plan was to visit some neighbor-friends, and if we were lucky, maybe we’d get to hear them play some music. Jazz isn’t normally my musical choice, but these guys were magical together. This is a father with his 2 sons, and I was sure they were reading one another’s minds! 

This is how things looked on the stroll back home. 

A day or so later, we spotted this Model A in the parking lot, and turned out it was someone’s that we know. I took a few photos for him on the bridge, a tricky business with a little bit of traffic, plus the dark shadows and bright light in the background. This was the best of the bunch. 

Then, while visiting some other neighbor-friends, one of them pointed out that “Bearskin”, the patch of snow on the side of Vandever, is looking less like the skin of a bear and more like a rooster this summer. 

We hiked to the lower part of White Chief with some friends. One of them is an entomologist and pointed out this beautiful bug. I said that a pair would make nice earrings, and she said that some company actually does make earrings out of their wings! 

White Chief canyon, after the super steep climbing is over.
Swamp onion near the little pond, its glory fading. . .
Three hiking buddies, a privilege to share the trail with.
I don’t know why Trail Guy is sticking his hands in the water that is flowing toward the little pond.
Oh no! Another unknown yellow flower!
The tail end of the summer’s peak. There is plenty of summer left, but the flowers are over their stunning best.

Seven Things I Learned In July

Giant Blazing Star
  1. If I don’t keep track of learning new things during the month, I’m hard pressed to think of them at the end of the month.
  2. There is a wildflower called “Giant Blazing Star”; it looks like its smaller cousin, “Blazing Star”. Wildflower naming is just confusing and weird to learn, but I persist in my quest, and one day there will be a book called Wildflowers of Mineral King: Common Names.
  3. Do great books count? I read an unusual number of books that I rated with 5 stars on Goodreads. We Took To the Woods, Blackbird (and the three other books by Jennifer Lauck), Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.
  4. I didn’t learn an answer to this question but here it is for you:WHY DO WE HAVE SO MANY WILDFIRES IN CALIFORNIA??? It wasn’t this way until about 10 years ago, at least in my memory. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?? A friend has the theory that it has to do with a change in Park policy about suppression. Many wildfires are not in the national parks, so that doesn’t really cover it. I think the tremendous media attention causes arsonists to crawl out of the woodwork, but that is just a hairbrained theory of my own warped thinking.

    The Horse Creek Fire from the Mineral King Road at night on July 21, 2018.
  5. A cat will do what a cat will do. After 2.5 months of trying to befriend Heidi, she ran away. No amount of mentoring by Piper or acceptance by Tucker and Scout could fix whatever was broken inside her little head.
  6. I’ve had an ongoing discussion with a friend who calls lodgepole trees “tamaracks”. Turns out that there is a tamarack tree that is not a lodgepole, but a deciduous conifer. Who knew?? I learned of this in a book called “Devotions From the Mountains” by Lisa Ham (published by Thomas Nelson). I’m not sure that was the intended lesson from that day, but it sure was interesting to me.
  7. We heard a guy interviewed on the radio who runs an organization in Montana called Provision International. They collect excess food and things, then ship them to needy people in poor countries. Among the things that they provide are used shoes, called “Share A Pair“. Trail Guy and I went through our closets and we filled a large carton with shoes to send to Billings. If you like their philosophy and mission, you might do the same. It seems more helpful than loading up a local thrift shop or just hanging on in case you might wear them again.

More Action-Packed Mineral King Days

Last week in Mineral King, Trail Guy, 2 friends and I took a hike to a special place that I am choosing to keep secret. (You can ask me in private, but I’m not posting any details on the World Wide Web.) On our hiking day, we experienced fabulous wildflowers, tremendous views, hail, thunder, lightning and rain.

This will be a long post – might want to refill your coffee cup.

View back down toward Mineral King about 2.5 miles up the Franklin Lakes/Farewell Gap trail.

My favorite flower was out in abundance.

Explorer’s Gentian

It was a bit of a challenge to keep marching forward while surrounded by this.

Franklin Lakes – You can see one of them here, and sort of see the shelf where the upper smaller lake is above (if you know what to look for).

We got back home to great light, rain, and news that lightning had sparked a wildfire about 14 miles down the road (but on the other side of the canyon), called the Horse Creek Fire.

Big puffy clouds made for good photos at the end of the day.

The next day we only managed an easy sort of walk. Limp. Shuffle. (Me, not Trail Guy, so that would be the “royal we”.)

The East Fork of the Kaweah, near Cold Springs Campground.
Penstemon, possibly “showy penstemon”, but I haven’t learned the varieties yet. This is a close second to Explorer’s Gentian in my hierarchy of favorite wildflowers.

The annual Mineral King Preservation Society (MKPS) “Picnic in the Park” happened for the 33rd time. Our speaker was the wife of a former packer who worked for a private pack station, as a contractor, and later for Sequoia. She was outstanding!

The picnic was held by the Honeymoon Cabin, a little museum put together by the MKPS, and painted and drawn by me more times than I can remember.

The door is almost always open on the Honeymoon Cabin, AKA the “Point Cabin”, although I’ve never noticed any point, other than a museum is a nice thing.
‘Splaining things to the folks.
‘Splaining things to the ranger.
Listening, ‘splaining, knitting, chest beating? and watching the knitter

It was a day of much weather variety, sometimes in pounding sun, ending in large raindrops.

I drove down after dark that night, a different way to experience the road.

The Horse Creek fire as seen on Saturday, July 21, around 9:30 p.m. Doesn’t look very threatening, but one never knows. The Park has chosen suppression as the best method for this fire, and I am very glad they have.

Busy Time in Mineral King

July is a busy month in Mineral King. One could just sit on the porch, knitting and reading, or one could get out and see and do. I am one of the latter types, sometimes. These photos represent the activities in about a three day stretch of time in Mineral King.

Flowers along the trail to Eagle meadow (below the Eagle/Mosquito junction)
The flowers were beautiful; the biting bugs were horrible.
Scary scary tree situation along the trail; I wonder how many people look up.
We climbed up and up and up, including over this boulder field, “just over that rise” to White Chief.
This is looking back down toward Eagle Lake, which we did not go to because it was supposed to be a pleasant walk to see some wildflowers. (fall down laughing)
Weird, weird, weird (and an excuse to stand still and catch my breath)
YES!! We found our slippy slopey way down to White Chief!
Another scary tree situation above the trail on the way down from White Chief.

The next day, my friend and I strolled down the Nature Trail. I stood in the middle of the creek to get this photo of water with Sawtooth in the distance. If I draw or paint this, I will exaggerate the size and contrast of Sawtooth.

 

Next, Trail Guy worked on tightening up the railing on the bridge that he helped build in 2011. That’s a pretty strong work ethic–improving one’s work 6 years after retiring, off the clock, no supervision, just wanting his work to hold up. I’m proud to be married to this man!

We had the privilege of guiding a group of students from Western Michigan University Lee Honors College who are on a trek, following in the steps of Walt Disney. They call themselves “Waltineers”, and are a delightful group of folks who all have a great love for Uncle Wally and all things Disney.

Not a whole lot of sitting around at the cabin. Mineral King is a busy busy place in July.