Hiking to the Flowers, Part 1

Trail Guy and I wanted to continue enjoying wildflowers at their peak, so we headed to the Franklin/Farewell Gap junction, 4 miles from the Mineral King Valley floor.

Morning sun coming through the Bigelow Sneezeweed.
Morning sun coming through thistle at the Crystal Creek crossing.
PINK Lupine?? Yeppers.
Last week this Giant Blazing Star was just unopened buds.
How many photos of Lupine will I take? As many as I want!
At the junction. The flowers are better behind me than in front.
Trail Guy went up ahead to a spring with reliable water. Yeppers, we drink from springs. Not saying that you should, just that we do.
Pink Sierra Bluebells. Life is full of unanswerable questions.
Yikes. Look what is coming down the trail. Better get a move on!

Secret Walk in Mineral King

I mentioned a friend in a recent post, someone I have mostly known through email correspondence. Last week she showed me a trail I have never heard of, and it seems to me that it might be very localized secret. So, out of respect for people’s privacy, I will simply show you photos but keep the identifying information quiet.

Wooly Mullein is not a native but grows along the Mineral King Road above the ranger station. I saw this on the way to meet my friend.
This is new to me – soft and furry like Lamb’s Ears (the plant, not an actual animal’s ears).
Our view.
Another unknown yellow.
An unknown little pink.
This is my first look at a Lewis Monkeyflower AND IT IS BLURRY!!
On the way back up the Nature Trail, I stopped to admire the aspens (and rest a little.)
Felwort is in bloom. I first saw this with another cabin neighbor/friend 2 years ago. It was A Moment To Remember. In real life it has more intense color, so much more that the first time I saw it, I thought it was lupine.

A Long Walk in Mineral King, Part 4

Maybe today we will conclude our Mineral King hike among the wildflowers. I will cease referring to Trail Guy as Off-Trail Guy now, because we rejoined a trail.

This is the Franklin/Farewell junction, where we normally go to swoon over the wildflowers. After Everything Spring, it was rather meh.
I was very happy to be on a trail again.
Aster? Dunno. Prolly. Tired.
Farewell, Farewell Gap.
I can count on seeing Blazing Stars along this trail. These are actually Giant Blazing Stars, and I don’t normally see them just before they have opened.
Maybe these are asters. They are smaller than the one I just showed you, and I’ve included some foliage in case you want to be Nancy Drew.
These Lupine were very intense. Never mind that I take photos of Lupine over and over. . .
This is Franklin Creek, 2 miles from the cabin. I just waded through, and it felt mighty fine. Then I slipped and sat in it by accident. No one saw, but I dripped all the way home. It wasn’t pretty.

I wonder why this hike felt farther and more difficult than in my memory. The flowers were the best I’ve ever seen, so it was worth the trouble. But oh my goodness, I need to work harder at fitness, or stay on a trail, or something. Is this part of being at the tail end of the F’s?

Just a few more photos, because we earned them, and so did you by sticking out this long saga of a long hike in Mineral King. Thank you!

A Long Walk in Mineral King, Part 3

Are you all rested after the lunch break and ready to make like a cow-pie and hit the trail again? (Never mind. We weren’t on a trail yet.)

These Paintbrush (formerly known as Indian Paintbrush) were almost flourescent.
Maybe one day I will look for these little whites and actually find a name.

After our lunch break among the yellow unknowns, we crossed a little spring or drainage, a wet place that I named Everything Spring. Every possible wildflower was there and in bloom. EVERYTHING.

Look at these Elephant Heads! This was my first oh-my-goodness moment at Everything Spring.
Paintbrush, Angelica, Jeffrey Shooting Star, Tiger Lilies, Larkspur, Rein Orchis (weird word, I know), Elephant Heads, Crimson Columbine, Knotweed (not in any particular order in this list – just wanted you to see all the names)
Red, white and blue (with some pinky-purple for an accent)
One last look at Everything Spring, because there were still 4.5 miles to go.

After Everything Spring, we crossed a snowfield. There is still a ton of snow around Farewell Gap. It has a bit of a pinkish cast. Off-Trail Guy tested it to be sure it wasn’t some sort of collapsing snow bridge. It was slippery in my worn-out Teva sandals. (Sandals on snow are funny, but didn’t qualify for a photo.)

Tomorrow we shall conclude this long walk (AKA hike).

A Long Walk in Mineral King, Part 2

Today we continue our long walk, now above White Chief, heading through some of the finest flowers in memory.

Is this an elderberry? Maybe. It looks a little different than the ones growing lower down.
Off-Trail Guy took this tree photo for you, Jess! (And why was this hike easier when you were with us?)
This is the view from the top of the ridge between White Chief and Farewell Canyon. Now you don’t have to struggle ever upward because we did it for you.
The Pennyroyal was thick. Too bad this isn’t a scratch-n-sniff.

I’m not going to sugar-coat this hike. It was harder to get to the top of the ridge than I remember, not as hard to come down the other side, but then pretty hard to pick footing through all the growth. It’s hard to step wisely when the ground isn’t visible, but there were no injuries. (Thank you for your concern.)

We call this Louise’s Spring because it is on one of her favorite slopes. The flowers were intensely abundant.
There were Larkspur, Lupine, and Sierra Stickseed, all blue. This photo doesn’t begin to tell the story (but at least your feet don’t hurt while reading about it.)
Who are you? Who-oo? Who-oo? (Those yellow look-alikes again.)
This is the foliage on this particular yellow look-alike, in case a blog reader is inclined to find its name.
This is part of my view while seated on my tookus during a short lunch break. Those yellow unknowns with a pop of purple in the center – a classic example of complementary colors. (Just had to throw that in in case you were wondering if I had abandoned my art career for a wildflower one.)
It is pretty unusual to have Languid Ladies (AKA Sierra Bluebells) in abundance in August.

Long hike, long post. To be continued. . . and here is an ad break.

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.

A Long Walk in Mineral King, Part 1

Actually, it was a hike. We went to White Chief, over the ridge to the Farewell Gap drainage, down to the snow survey site, crossed the stream on a snowfield, found our way to the Farewell/Franklin Trail, and then 4 miles back to the cabin.

This is how things looked around 9 a.m.
This footbridge across Spring Creek is immensely helpful.
Is this a dandelion? It looks different. You know how I feel about all those look-alike yellows!
This is for Jess; I miss my tree-hugger friend. We stopped here to put on mosquito repellent, just before getting into the lower White Chief canyon.
Looks easy here, but there are three steep sections to get to this place.
Lower White Chief Canyon
Mountain Jewelflower is sort of nondescript but was everywhere. The leaves show up more than the blossom.
Mountain Pride or Pride of the Mountains – either name is just as pretty.
Off-Trail Guy and his beloved Tiger Lilies

This post is getting too long, kind of like the hike was. To be continued. . .

Short Mineral King Walk

There is a trail in Mineral King called “The Nature Trail”, a one mile route that connects Cold Springs Campground (near the Ranger Station) to the Mineral King valley itself.

There was a meeting in the area near Cold Springs Campground, and I took the Zapato Express*, choosing to go down the trail instead of the road. We normally walk down the road and back up the trail, but I thought I’d probably be catching a ride back up and I didn’t want to miss the progression of summer along the trail.

The river is flowing steadily, a lot of water for August.
Many yellows look alike, in spite of the name of the yellow chapter in my book. I might be able to identify this, eventually.
Aster? Glacial Daisy? Something else? It was pale lavender, not the white it appears in this photo.
These are a bit different. Smaller, and a clump instead of a long stem, and growing in a dry area instead of a wet one, also lavender.
It wasn’t a requirement to wear a straw hat to the meeting, but you wouldn’t know by this photo.

Someone in her upper years of life requested a ride home in the 2-seater Botmobile, so I got to walk back up the trail, not a hardship by any stretch of the imagination.

Yarrow in the foreground; Black Wolf falls (Monarch Creek) in the fuzzy background.
I never tire of the aspens.
Almost back to the cabin. The flowers are just endlessly fabulous this year. (Nope, not my cabin in the photo. This is the World Wide Web, and I try to maintain a teensy bit of privacy.)
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.

*This means I walked; “zapato” means shoe in Español.

Mineral King Wildflowers

Due to a late winter, increased family responsibilities, time at Hume Lake, and a Shaver Lake reunion, my visits to Mineral King have been fewer this summer than in previous years. Have a look at a recent visit, a non-hiking sort of look.

It is a remarkable year for water and for flowers. This area usually has Tiger (or Leopard) Lilies, but this year it has many other flowers as well.

In spite of having spots instead of stripes, these are more commonly called “Tiger” lilies than they are called “Leopard” lilies.
Yet another yellow flower that looks like many others, this one is Arrowroot Groundsel (and doesn’t appear in my book).

This blog post is sponsored by Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names. 

And that’s all the advertising you will ever find on my blog. No pop-ups or moving little boxes to click shut. Ever. So there.

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.

A Walk to Eagle Meadow

We crossed Spring Creek on the footbridge. It has a ton of water for the 2nd half of July!
How a knot looks from inside a hollow tree.

I split a lot of firewood, and have learned how to read the wood to work with the knots. Knots are just branches, but I have never seen inside a hollow tree before to see the entire branch, or what the end of a knot looks like.

This is Eagle Creek as it runs into the sink hole.
Water disappears into the Eagle sink hole, and we strongly suspect it is the source of Spring Creek.
This is one of my favorite sections of trail in all of Mineral King, EXCEPT the mosquitoes and biting flies are always horrible here. This is the area where hikers decide if they are heading to Eagle Lake or to Mosquito Lakes (there are five).
There were still patches of snow on July 21.
This is Eagle Meadow, and the flowers did not disappoint.
Jeffrey Shooting Stars grow in water (hence, the many mosquitoes).

There weren’t as many flowers as we expected along the trail, because it is still early-ish, due to the heavy winter and late spring.

I like the color combination of Indian Paintbrush with sage.
This flower seems to be everywhere except in my many wildflower books. This time I was determined to find it and I did! It is called a Stout-beaked Toothwort. (I am not making this up!) Really, People-Who-Name-Flowers, couldn’t you do better than this?
The Mariposa Lilies were thick, and the slopes looked polka-dotted with them.

Neither one of us is a fan of the upper part of the Eagle Lake trail, and it was a hot day, so we turned around and got home in time for lunch. Thus, I have called this a “walk” instead of a “hike” (although Trail Guy carried lunch, just in case.)

Mineral King, Plein Air #4

I liked sitting by the stream to paint, so I set up the next day in the morning so it would be shady. The idea was to paint the same scene with different lighting, but I ended up leaving out the juniper this time. Why? Because I wanted to, and I am the boss of my painting.

This time I used the lid of the palette to balance, because the less stuff I have to juggle, the better.

But wait! Before I started this painting, I decided to try one from my memory and a sketch I had made the evening before. Because we are fairly social on our road, evenings, especially on holiday weekends, are for neighbors, not for working. So it wasn’t convenient or friendly to disappear to work when people had braved that road and wanted to socialize.

Ummm, no. This will need some work in the studio.
Vandever & Stream, 8×8″, sold.
There is a theme here.

There. I’m done with plein air in Mineral King posts for awhile. I just wanted you to know that I am still working, even though it seems as if I just goof off in Mineral King in the summer.