These Mineral King oil paintings recently sold. That’s the good news. The less good news is that I have no idea who bought them. This is probably usual when one sells through a store* rather than a gallery.
Tomorrow I’ll show you what I painted to fill the blank spots on the store*’s shelves.
*”The store” is the Silver City Store, AKA Silver City Mountain Resort.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. . .
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.
Back in the olden days when I could see without cheater magnifier glasses or a giant magnifying light, I used to draw at the cabin. I even had a drafting table upstairs underneath a north-west facing window for light.
It has been quite a few years since that was an adequate arrangement. I sold the table and stopped trying to work without electricity.
However, last week I wanted to get some work done and be out of the triple-digit heat. Since a 2018 calendar printing deadline is looming, I decided to give drawing at the cabin another try. The calendar will be all about water in Tulare County, and water doesn’t require a T-square or precise measurements, the way architectural subjects do.
It has been so long since I drew up the hill that my favorite brand of pencils has changed from Turquoise to Mars Staedtler. I had no Mars, so I used a Palomino Blackwing.
Grandpa’s magnifying glass helped. I took the drawing home, and perfected things under the giant magnifying light before scanning and doing the Photoshop prep for the 2018 calendar.
This was definitely a successful experiment, so we celebrated with a BBQ’d pizza for dinner. No way was I cooking that in the woodstove – it would get as hot in the kitchen as it is down the hill!
Curious about Palomino Blackwing pencils? I got them through Amazon, of course.
Two days after Trail Guy went to Farewell Gap via a loop, we returned together with our new best hiking buddy Jessica. The point of the hike was to see Sky Pilot, an elusive high-elevation flower that we’ve never seen anywhere except Farewell Gap (not that we go anywhere outside of Mineral King. . .)
Here are my photos of that trip.
I felt sort of tired, and thought, “How disappointing, I’m out of shape”. It later occurred to me that middle-aged people who are truly out of shape don’t hike 13+ miles in one day at high altitudes (or low ones either).
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MELISSA!!
When I hike, I think. When I think, I ALWAYS have questions.
Here are his photos from inside the tunnel:
About a week later, the tunnel looked like this. He walked in it a ways, and then climbed out onto the pinkish algae-clad snow.
The more he rubbed and tried to wash off the algae, the redder it became.
Trail Guy prefers to loop hikes to up-and-backs on the same trail. While I was reuniting with Redwood High School Class of ’77, he was making a loop from White Chief over to the Farewell Canyon and up into Farewell Gap. Here are his photos.
Eagle Lake is about 4 miles from the Mineral King valley floor, but the trail is steep and rough. In spite of that, it is probably the most popular destination. Trail Guy doesn’t like going there and I haven’t been in several years. The last time I was there, the lake was almost empty, because some stupid hon-yock opened the gate on the dam.
This is no excuse to miss out on Eagle Meadow below the lake or the sloping meadow below Eagle Meadow.
One also encounters a mysterious sinkhole, where water continually flows into and yet it doesn’t fill up.
The trail looks positively bucolic, but there are armies, platoons and relentless swarms of ravenous bugs.
There is a meadow before you begin climbing to Eagle Lake, and it was full of Jeffrey Shooting Star and Knotweed. (and bugs that bite.)
