Sights along the Mineral King Road

This is how “the potholes” were running recently. It is wonderful to see all the water!

This is how Sawtooth looked on the way up the hill. (That’s flannel bush in the foreground).

This is an unnamed drainage, coming down from Empire, about 2 miles below the Mineral King Valley. Every possible drainage is flowing.

This is looking back down the road through what remains of the avalanche by the Sawtooth parking lot.

Finally, this is how it looked out the back door of our cabin. The woodpile is accessible, so I was able to swing an axe and even a hatchet. Making kindling isn’t nearly as satisfying as splitting wood for the stove, but sometimes a woman’s gotta do what she’s gotta do.

Samson isn’t dead. He was sleeping in my studio, and I took this photo in case you missed him or wanted to see the spots on his belly.

Wildflowers on Mineral King Road

A few days ago I was in Mineral King and took photos along the road of the abundant wildflowers.

But first, let’s start with my favorite subject to draw and paint, the Oak Grove Bridge.

Look at that water!!!

Wildflowers along the road continue to be prolific. The first photo isn’t technically of wildflowers: these are sweet peas planted by Mary Trauger in the late 1800s.

Blazing Star
I don’t know
I don’t know, even closer
HUGE dandelions
Yellow-throated gilia (pronounced “Jill-ee-uh”)
Ceanothus, wild mountain lilac, or if you were on a road crew with Trail Guy, “ant bush”.
Flannel bush, AKA “Fremontia”
bush poppy
More I don’t knows
Farewell to Spring; some years, you can see them almost all summer as you gain altitude through the season along the road.
Bush monkey flower
Penstemmon, hugely more vibrant in person than in photos

This post is too long. Hope you made it to the end. Tomorrow, Mineral King will be the subject matter again.

Meanwhile, remember there is a one day drawing workshop coming this Saturday in Visalia.

Mineral King Oil Paintings, Finished and Drying

These photos of six little Mineral King paintings represent a day with 3-4 tiny paintbrushes in motion. 6×6″ paintings are canvases that easily fall off the easel, so I hold them in my hand while painting. The detail is as accurate as I am able to achieve without running each painting into an irretrievable number of hours.

Let’s review.

Top photo, left to right: White Chief; Aspens along the Nature Trail

Trail through Atwell Mill Campground, lower end of the campground

Trail leaving Monarch Lake

Sawtooth as seen from the Nature Trail; Sawtooth as seen from the Nature Trail

Each of these paintings will look better when dry and scanned, and even better in person. Each painting is $60 (plus tax if you live in California. I round the number to $65 because simpler is better.)

One of the Sawtooth from the Nature Trail paintings is spoken for. (SD, which one do you prefer??)

The rest will be sold through the Silver City Store, unless you contact me before I take them up the hill.

Opening Mineral King 2017

Mineral King officially opened on Wednesday, May 24. This is remarkable, considering it was a huge winter. Most of the reason it is open is because Trail Guy borrowed a backhoe and spent 120 hours of volunteer work to fight through the avalanches. This made it possible for the Park’s road guy to do the basics in time for Memorial Day weekend.

Fantastic water flow as seen from the bridge at the end of the road, AKA Mineral King Bridge
Bless those older generations of cabin folks who planted daffodils!
The parking lot at the end of the road is boggy, but Trail Guy is also Retired Road Guy and we rigged up a barricade.
Whoa. This is the beginning of the Eagle/Mosquito trail. The Park’s sign took a hit. Your feet might get wet heading this direction. (Might get wet heading any direction.)

Our cabin had a ton of snow on the front porch (and the back porch too). Trail Guy is resourceful, and after I spent an hour or more shoveling, he thought of this tool.

 

Day Trip to Mineral King

About 1 week ago, Trail Guy took his buddy Mike to Mineral King for the day. The idea was to take the Trackster into the valley, and then perhaps do a bit of snow-shoeing or skiing. Trail Guy wanted to see the cabin after the big winter to be sure all was well.

Lots of snow through Faculty Flat, AKA West Mineral King.However, the daffodils are blooming at the Dixon cabin, just before reaching the Ranger Station. Alas, there is still another large avalanche remaining at the Sawtooth Parking lot area. Looks as if the Michaels climbed to the top to cross over and then took a picture of the little snow buggy below. (That’s the Trackster.)

The bridge at the end of road is snow-free. Hi Mike! These cabins are snow free.

And the avalanche had to be crossed over to get back to the Trackster. 

Our cabin was fine, but is always the last one to melt out. Trail Guy did not take any pictures of it; even if he had, I might not be willing to post them on the World Wide Web.

An Attempt to Get Into Mineral King

Was Trail Guy really attempting to get into Mineral King? Or was he just having a fun day with his buddy Mike? Whatever the motivation, they didn’t make it to the end of the road but they did have a good time together.

The photos aren’t in any particular order, and I can’t identify where each photo was taken. They were snow avalanches, and what shows is all the debris left behind.

Friend Mike and the Cushman Trackster
The waterfall looks camouflaged here. It is the one called “Three Falls Below The Gate”; can you pick it out?

The redbud is still quite beautiful on the lower part of the road. Isn’t the color brilliant after all the browns up the road?

Repainting Mineral King, Day Twelve, Part B

On Day Twelve, the final day of repainting the Mineral King mural in Exeter, I spent a lot of time staring at the wall to determine what might need a touch-up, some polishing, a minor correction. It was hot, and the longer I stood there, the less I could see to do. Fortunately, there were many interesting visitors to visit with while I contemplated matters of possible consequence.

This is an ore bucket, one of the hidden items. It still seems obvious to me, and may be obvious to other observers. Since it is one of 13 hidden items, it is okay to have a few easy ones.

I stared and stared, thinking to show you before and after photos of the polishing process. Now I can’t tell which photos are the before and which are the after.

I added what might pass for phlox and groundsel wildflowers to this hill. The heat immediately turned the paint to the consistency of toothpaste and made the brush thick and unwieldy. The flowers don’t even show in the photos!Finally, I signed it. Had the same trouble with the heat and the paint consistency on the signature. I would have kept the old signature, but the brilliant periwinkle blue color was just too weird. Now that I see it on this photo, I wonder why I didn’t sign directly beneath the plaque. This might require another visit to the wall, on an overcast day when the brush can retain a point and the paint can retain flow.

Then, because there was shade on the other side of the parking lot, I stood back and took a few final photos, because the next time I see this, there will be cars parked alongside.

The color isn’t as good in the afternoon light as in the morning light. I like this because Marty Weekly’s mural “Timber Trail” shows in the distance through the awning. (far right side of photo). Why didn’t Marty’s fade? I’m sure it goes back to the colors I used; in spite of the high lightfast rating, my yellow was most certainly not light fast or fade resistant. This time using different yellows, it WILL last. I insist upon it!

And with this, we conclude our Repainting Mineral King series.

Maybe.

Mineral King Mural, Day Twelve, Part A

First, on Day Twelve, I returned the truck. Just drove it like I knew what I was doing, but sitting there on the giant bench seat, I couldn’t even reach the top of the steering wheel with my hands because it was so huge. Nice Freightliner, and I got it up to 25 mph. Just zipped right along.

Sorry. You probably don’t care about that. 

Then I walked the mile or so back to the mural, and along the way I encountered a good friend from Three Rivers, the man with the Events Room where I painted 2 murals last year (the second one here), stopped in at the dentist office to see if any decisions have been made about muralizing there, and checked in with Rosemary & Thyme to learn they are out of coloring books again.

It was a walking business trip, but I can’t write off the mile for that.

Then, with the Freightliner out of the way, I photographed the entire mural in the morning sunshine. At this distance and these angles, it appears to be finished.

Au contraire!

This lower hill needs wildflowers.

I’m certain there is something needed here, such as better foreground trees or a camouflaging of a hidden item.

But look – what is this? A visiting celebrity, a guest artist, none other than. . . TRAIL GUY!

What could I do except take a break and treat him to lunch?

So, this will be continued tomorrow. . .

 

Repainting Mineral King, One Day Left

Today will be my last day on this wall. The list of touch-ups, detailing, hiding things, camouflaging hidden things, and evaluating is long and boring. Maybe the photos will be interesting. I’ll show you tomorrow what I did today.

Meanwhile, I thought you might like to see the photos I worked from for the mural. You have to imagine them all stretched out one after another, and cropped off at the bottom, with snapshots of cabin scenes lying on top of the scenery. Then imagine them all lying ended to end, but now they are 110′ long.

Kind of makes your head spin a bit, yes?

Indeed.

Repainting Mineral King, Day Eight

It wasn’t hot Monday! I thought I’d be able to paint on the Mineral King mural in Exeter (please excuse the redundancy – it is for the search engines) until around 5 p.m., but no way because I am a middle-aged wuss who ran out of gas.

A pleasant day with lots of interesting folks stopping by. I’ll put the list at the end.

The day’s work began with detailing the area below Farewell Gap, while standing on the ground. This is what I consider to be the focal point of the mural, but with something this wide, there are many focal points. It’s because this area is closest to the valley floor of Mineral King, even though the mural isn’t tall enough to include the valley floor.

This is how it looked after 1-1/2 hours of painting. Felt quick, but needed more detailing. Plus, there is still a blue space, which probably measures 2×4 feet. That would be a large painting by itself, but on this mural it is about the relative size of a postage stamp.

When I took a brief break at noon, this is how things looked. Lots of little dabs, softening edges, roughing up parts that looked too smooth, fiddling, “perfecting”, which is actually not possible with these huge brushes, at least as I define “perfect” (and “huge”).

Next it was time to climb up on the bed of the truck, and move into Panel #4. (Wait! it is only Day Eight, and this is supposed to happen on Day 10 at the earliest!) Some of it is too high to reach from the step ladder while leaning across the void, now that I am not putting the rear tire on the curb. Gonna have to come up with a plan for this.

After 2 hours of painting, this is all I’ve done?? It is probably a lot of real estate, but in contrast to all that remains, it ain’t much. That’s okay, this is only day eight. There’s plenty of time. . .

At quitting time, which was only around 3:30 (what a wuss), this is all that was covered. I also poured some paints from the buckets into the little containers, mixed some more gray and another green, and talked to a lot of people. (Didn’t want you to think that all I do is stand around and paint.)

Look at the day’s interactions:

  1. Anibar and Marcos from the City of Exeter checked in to say hello and exchange small talk about our weekends.
  2. Dan from the large and well-stocked antique store The Grove stopped by to introduce and be friendly.
  3. Mrs. Homeowner of the Three Rivers house that I painted last year came by. You can see her house here.
  4. A couple of guys walked past and commented that, “Some tough people lived in those houses!” They were referring to the cabins in the snapshots on the mural. I said that they were summer homes only and that I thought it took more toughness to deal with the summers down the hill than to live in cabins up the hill. 
  5. A woman came by from Tulare who said she’s about to move to Colorado. We had a nice conversation about what it is like to radically change locales. She’s lived in lots of places, and said the best thing she does is to first find a church. Then the other things work themselves out. I was severely traumatized by moving the 14 miles from Lemon Cove to Three Rivers 18 years ago, and can’t imagine changing states (although it is tempting at times, particularly tax time, election time, bad air time, Sequoia prescribed burning time. . . never mind.)
  6. A man and woman stopped by on their lunch breaks. He sells Kirby vacuums door-to-door and is an ex-Marine. Very engaging guy, probably does well. She works for Monrovia Nursery, grew up in So. Dakota, and hasn’t yet experienced summer here. Good luck!
  7. Tim and Elizabeth from Stanford University stopped by. He is now working in ag around here, she isn’t yet graduated, and they are very interested in Mineral King. Welcome, and I hope to see you this summer up the hill!
  8. Joanne, a mural tour guide stopped by, so I showed her the latest hidden item. 
  9. Anibar and Marcos stopped by again on their way back to the City yard for the day. Really nice guys, and very hard-working. I feel as if I have a pair of protectors near by, not that I need any.

No painting on Tuesday or Wednesday this week. If it isn’t raining, I’ll paint Thursday, Friday and Saturday.