Walking to Soda Springs

Soda Springs is about 1-1/2 mile from the bridge in Mineral King. This was a walk, and I wore my Crocs to prove it. (We took nothing but photos, left nothing but footprints. Aren’t we groovy?)

We had this view of Timber Gap at our backs.
Bigelow Sneezeweed remains my favorite yellow flower.
Arnica? Meh.
Things are beginning to dry out. If you look beyond these asters, you can see the wall that leads down to Soda Springs in the distance.
There were still lots of hidden gems among the grasses.
I didn’t think of putting my feet in the water. This is because they didn’t hurt, wearing my trusty and well-loved Crocs.
Soda Springs flows down into the creek, which is the East Fork of the Kaweah River. Yeppers, it is that rusty puddle that continues to bubble to the surface.
Sulphur Flower is so named because of the color. I didn’t stick my nose in it, but doubt if it smells like sulphur.
It turns a beautiful rust color as it is finishing its season. (I think this is Sulphur Flower but I couldn’t swear. Trying not to, anyway.)
Wire Lettuce has the weirdest name and is a basic shade of pink that is uncommon among Mineral King wildflowers.
There were 2 sizes of Sierra Gentian, but my favorite, Explorer’s Gentian, wasn’t yet in bloom unless you really poked around carefully in the tall grasses.
The Baby’s Breath was very thick on the northwest side of the Crystal Creek crossing.
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.

Still Chasing Wildflowers

The season is quickly moving toward fall, but I am still chasing wildflowers in and around Mineral King.

On the way up the hill for Labor Day weekend, we stopped at the water trough at Redwood Canyon, where I was thrilled to see Scarlet Monkeyflowers!! Red flowers are rare in nature, and I’ve seldom seen these. Now I know they are end-of-the-summer flowers, and I’ve spotted them in another place along the Mineral King Road (above Trauger’s at a seeping spring, in case you are wondering.)

This is just so you can see where they are/were located.
This was there too, without any flowers, but the hint of color in its leaves tells me it must be Something Cool.
There are Coneflowers at my neighbors’ cabin. They are native and wild, but I’ve mostly seen them at cabins in Mineral King. Sometimes you can find them around the Tar Gap parking lot too.
The neighbor has a very good section of Bigelow Sneezeweed too.
Speaking of neighbors, this little genius said, “Mommy knows a lot, Daddy knows a lot, but Mr. Botkin knows everything!”
Goldenrod is very profuse this year, a normal sight for late summer.
Asters are also a common late summer sight.
Glacial Daisy, I think, unless it is a washed out Aster.

All of the flowers were found in the vicinity of the bridge, from where this classic photo was taken.

One day soon I will return to posting about art. The flowers won’t last forever!

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.

Chihuahua Bowl, P.S.

Here is a postscript to the post about Chihuahua Bowl, consisting of photos from Trail Guy’s camera.

“Grandpa, tell me ’bout the good old days.”
These people are kind of tired.
But they are glad to be here.
Trail Guy likes wildflowers as much as I do, especially if he can catch a butterfly on one.

Someone Else Hiked to Groundhog Meadow. . .

. . . and shared her photos. Thank you, Sharon Devol! Since unlike some of us, she wasn’t racing around trying to get to Chihuahua Bowl, Sharon took the time to enjoy Groundhog Meadow.

(And I still want to know why Chihuahua Bowl wasn’t full of M&Ms, preferably dark chocolate. Do they make dark chocolate M&Ms with almonds?? Why even have a bowl if it isn’t full of something like M&Ms?)

THANK YOU, SHARON!!

Walking to Chihuahua

Where’s Chihuahua? This is the name of a bowl and a drainage with a seasonal creek that ends up near the pack station in Mineral King. It is up the Timber Gap/Sawtooth trail, on the way to Cobalt and Crystal Lakes. We were joined by The Farmer, Hiking Buddy, The Heir and his wife (I’ll call her Beauty), and the Nine-Year-Old for what we mistakenly thought would be a simple walk.

It was a hike. A Hike. A HIKE. A HIKE!

The Mineral King Valley is still green in August! We are partway up the first steep 1/2-mile of the Timber Gap Trail.
Choices and consequences. . . but it doesn’t list Sawtooth, Cobalt, or Chihuahua. Note the mileages on the sign – one would reasonably conclude that there is a .4 mileage difference between the 2 lakes listed here.
Looking toward Eagle Lake across the valley, The Farmer told the Nine-Year-Old that up on the ridge are 2 Indians on horseback, and then there are 3 wisemen leading 1 camel. Can you see this?
Nice of you all to wait, but I bet you will take off the minute I reach you. Beauty is sporty, young and fit. Hiking Buddy and I lagged a bit. The Farmer probably wished he could have lagged. Nine-Year-Old kept telling us he had never walked so many steps in his entire life, INCLUDING Knott’s Berry Farm!
Yep. They stayed well ahead of me. That’s the rock outcropping of Empire Mt. that’s visible from the Mineral King valley but isn’t the highest point.
The sign reads “TRAIL”, because there is an old unmaintained trail to Monarch and Sawtooth off to the left.
The Bigelow Sneezeweed was profuse at Groundhog Meadow, a name that has always puzzled me. They are MARMOTS, not groundhogs, and it is sort of a boulder field, not really a meadow. But it is always a relief to get there because the trail is steep, hot, and dusty. Really steep at the end!
A variety of Mallow.
An unknown with soft fuzzy leaves, definitely in the mint family because of its square stem. I first saw this 2 weeks ago on the walk up the secret trail.
Mountain Jewelflower is something I never noticed until this year, and now it seems to be everywhere.
Weird. A fungus? A lichen? Not a flower!
The way we kept Nine-Year-Old moving ahead (and ourselves) was the promise of water at Chihuahua Bowl.
Trail Guy and The Farmer filled all our bottles.
The views were wonderful, and we were thankful to plop down and eat our lunches. The Heir packed cold barley pop for his family, which I thought was a fitting complement to the Hot Tamales which kept Nine-Year-Old moving forward.
NOW where are they going?? Oh. Scouting out a route to the Crystal Lake trail so we don’t have to bushwhack back the same way we came.
It has been years since I went to Crystal but I remember the rough trail past Chihuahua, up over that ridge ahead, down through the part where you can see Cobalt Lakes below, and then back up to Crystal. It isn’t a trip for the weak-minded or weak-bodied.
What’s going on here?? I thought the difference in mileage between the lakes was 4/10 of a mile, not 2/10. Did Monarch get pushed farther out, or did Crystal get pulled closer? My memory says that Crystal is farther than just another 1.4 miles from this junction.
Trail Guy and I went toward Monarch briefly because I remembered seeing a tree along the trail a few years ago that I couldn’t identify. Turns out it is a foxtail pine, and I didn’t recognize it because it is sheltered from the harsh elements and has grown tall and straight instead of the gnarly warped shape I am used to seeing.
Same view, several hours later, at Groundhog Meadow. “Groundhog Meadow”, as opposed to Marmot Boulderfield.
This trail is hot, dusty and steep. Any time I am trudging back down it in the heat of the day, I question the wisdom of day hiking on this side of the valley.
A group of 14 very fit and fairly grumpy Sierra Clubbers passed me up. I might be grumpy too if I had a 6 hour drive back to a city.
Someone forgot their shoes. They might be my size. If not, I’ll send them to Provision International.

(Provision International sends shoes to people in very poor countries who don’t have any.)

Trail Guy Goes to Farewell Gap. Again.

I am currently working on things that don’t belong on this blog. These things are often not in Mineral King, and since Mineral King is the most popular topic on the blog, I am showing you photos of recent hikes by my husband of almost 33 years, Trail Guy. Eventually I will be working on my art again and letting you have a peek into the life of this Central California artist.

Sky Pilot is only found in very high elevations, almost always near Farewell Gap. This is the flower on the cover of “Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names” (but not this photo).
Lupine, not Sky Pilot.
Yeppers, snow remains in August. . .
. . .but it is melting.


Thank you, Trail Guy, for photographing wildflowers and hopefully whetting the appetite of the readers for a book that tells the common names of Mineral King wildflowers!

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.

Trail Guy Goes to White Chief. Again.

Hey Central California Artist who hikes, what are you doing these days? Not working, not hiking.

Then what? I dunno. Knitting, reading, helping people, yardening, editing, planning for drawing lessons in September, thinking about painting ideas, messing with the calendar design.

Some of that IS work! Yeah, but I like it all.

Why aren’t you hiking? Because helping people and anything involving the computer happens down the hill.

Okay, then let’s look at pictures that Trail Guy took on a recent hike. Okay, good idea. He went to White Chief again.

Mineral King Wildflowers, Penstemon

Penstemon is a family of wildflowers that have tubes, which hummingbirds like.

How’s that for a non-scientific explanation?

There are many types of penstemon, and I know the names of some of them. Others are confusing, so if you are really into this, maybe you can discover the names. And remember, I only deal in common names (but sometimes read the Latin ones and have learned that Genus comes first and Species comes second, but I don’t know what those things actually mean.)

Pride of the Mountains, or Mountain Pride is a hot pink version.

The red one is called Golden Beard Penstemon, because if you look inside its mouth, it is yellow. (But why would it have a beard inside its mouth? Yuck.) I didn’t lie on the ground and photograph up into the opening for you. And I don’t know where I got the name “Golden Beard”, because in my book it is called Red, Scarlet, or Bridge’s Penstemon.

This next one might be called Showy Penstemon, but I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that the color slays me. It grows close to the ground and is hard to photograph well.

The fourth type I’ve only seen on Farewell Gap. It is a pinky-purple, or perhaps a purply-pink. It is called both Timberline and Davidson’s Penstemon.

That’s the strap to my camera on the upper right, in case you are wondering.

Finally, there is one I learned as Whorled Penstemon, but all the books I consulted call it Meadow, Sierra, or Small-Flowered Penstemon. There is always a lot of it at White Chief, and I saw some at Eagle Lake last summer. It is another one that I have not photographed particularly well. It is lavender but for some reason usually shows up sort of pinkish.

And thus we conclude our non-scientific tangent into the wonders of Penstemon.

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.

Hiking to the Flowers, Part 3

The junction of the Franklin Lakes and Farewell Gap trail is notorious for abundant wildflowers. I left the area reluctantly, as Trail Guy became Off-Trail Guy while I headed back to the cabin.

These folks passed me by, but when I caught up to them, I knew several. It was a group from Westmont College in Santa Barbara. Great folks!
The Pennyroyal were both thick and fragrant, especially if you knelt in them for a photo, as I did.
I keep looking for the best photo of wildflowers in the foreground with landmarks in the background. Timber Gap is the landmark area in this photo.
Timber Gap and Lupine, very similar to a photo taken by Trail Guy shown in yesterday’s post. (We’ve been married for almost 33 years, so things like this are bound to happen.)
Larkspur is one of my favorites. (My real favorite, Explorer’s Gentian, was just beginning to bloom but I only greeted it, taking no photos.)
Franklin Creek. I managed to cross without accidentally sitting down this time.

Hiking to the Flowers, Part 2

Trail Guy and I parted ways at the junction. He wanted to go off-trail, and Prudence told me to stick to the trail. (I do best when I listen to her.) These are his photos from across the East Fork of the Kaweah, on the north-facing slopes of Farewell Canyon.

That’s not a wildflower!

Tomorrow I’ll show you photos of my hike the 4 miles back to Mineral King, on the trail.