We were up this morning at 5:45; had a quick breakfast of granola, bananas, and tea, and took off. The weather today was much colder, in the high 30s or low 40s by the feel of it. It stayed cold all day, never getting above about 55 or so. When we woke we were socked in with clouds, but by the time we got on the road it had burned off and we had wall-to-wall blue skies. Later in the day (around 1 pm) the clouds started rolling back in, and we had some rapidly varying weather -- rain, hail, and snow (sometimes heavy). The sun was sometimes shining while the precipitation was falling, including one memorable ten minute stretch of snowfall heavy enough to lower our visibility -- with bright sunshine the whole time.In general our intention today was to explore lower elevations (roughly 4,000' to 5,000') to the west and north of Mineral. We figured that since we were too early for many wildflowers in the higher elevations, this might find us something. So we headed west from Mineral on 36 for a short distance, then turned off on 2914Y (across from Battle Creek Campground), only to run into a locked gate very quickly. There was a very nice flower display on the road cut right where the gate was, so this was quite frustrating -- we wanted to see what more this road would offer. But you can't fight a Forest Service gate (those things are strong!), so we turned around and backtracked to the highway, then took 17 north to look for another way into the system of roads we wanted to get onto. We saw lots of ceanothus and manzanita ground cover, but little else of interest until we got to Dry Lake (which in fact was quite wet, with enough water to support a healthy stand of rushes). After this, we started trying every road off 17 to the west, but we kept running into gates until we got to 31N45, which was open. We started down on this, seeing lots of attractive forest, but very few flowers. Just past Willow Spring, at the intersection with 30N15, we met a fellow in a pickup truck who stopped to talk. He told us to stay on 31N45 as it was free of gates (hooray!). When we told him we were looking for wildflowers, he told us to take the road marked "G-Line", as he thought he remembered some fields of flowers.
These are lumbering roads in this area, and the "G-Line" refers to a line of lumbering sites, each of which would be labeled with a sign like "G-32" or "G-10". So we took his advice and followed the road all the way down what seemed like forever, and had just given up on ever seeing that G-Line sign, when finally we spotted it. We took the G-Line road for forever more, until we ran smack into a paved road and a town called Forward Camp. This entire road was not particularly interesting from a wildflower perspective, and now we just wanted to get back to the main road.
Unfortunately, we had fallen off the maps I had with me in the truck, so we didn't know where we were going. Figuring that the paved road might lead us back to civilization and Highway 36, we followed it. A couple of miles down the road, we ran into a beautiful flower patch alongside the road. This accidentally discovered flower patch was not only the best flowering of the day, it was the best of the whole trip! We wandered amongst dozens of species in bloom for about an hour. It was nearly flat, and very easy for my father to get around in, which made it all that much better.
A couple of miles further and we saw some beautiful orange lilies (I think) alongside the road, lining both sides of a small irrigation channel. When we stopped to take pictures and gawk, we noticed a sign for "apples" -- we were next to an apple orchard. We went in to ask about apples, and found a young woman who worked there. She sadly told us there'd be no apples until September; their cold storage had been empty since January. But I was able to get directions for her for the route back to highway 36; it would take us through the tiny town of Manton, which we discovered later was quite some distance from Mineral -- we had done a bunch of driving!
After we got back to Mineral, we refueled and decided to explore the unamed hill above Mill Creek, since the flowers and plants there looked very interesting. We headed from Mineral back toward Mill Creek, and turned north on 29N60, which winds around the west side of this hill. The forest, as usual, was pretty and enjoyable, but we saw few flowers (except for the only larkspur so far on this trip). Just past the intersection with 29N91, we saw something interesting to our northwest -- something that looked like a mountaintop with a large meadowed area. In these mountains, such meadows are very uncommon -- we'd not seen one yet. And we know from past experience that such meadows often have abundant wildflowers. From that moment on, our goal was to find that meadow! So we turned onto 29N91, and then onto 29N62A1, staying on the west flank of the hill until we intersected Highway 36 again, at Morgan Summit. From there we headed west on 36 a short distance to 29N64B, which heads north to about the area I guessed the meadow was in. Unfortunately, this road was impassable after just a short distance, so we backtracked and headed a little further west on 36 until we turned north onto 30N15. A short distance onto this road we drove past a small meadow with a bee hive group, and from there we could see both east and west -- and to the west of us, we could see the hill with the meadow, not far above us. Furthermore, on the map this area was labeled "Wilson Meadow" -- and the road we were on led to a trail directly below it! We thought we had it made, and took off on 30N15, around a switchback and up the hill with the meadow.
We we arrived at the point where the trail was supposed to begin (right next to an old mine), we discovered the tailings pile and the trail -- which was really a four-wheel drive road. So we just drove right up to Wilson Meadow, anticipating a wildflower adventure all the way. What a disappointment we were in for! There was no meadow. Where the meadow was supposed to be was a vast forest of young manzanita, and of course no wildflowers. The manzanita were all the same size, and therefore the same age -- roughly 10 to 15 years old. We figure there must have been a meadow here, but it burned. Manzanita is a fire pioneer; its seeds don't normally germinate without a fire. We can't think of any other way to account for such a large group of manzanita...
At this point, we were ready to head for our cabin -- but we decided to take the long way home just to explore the area that was new to us. We continued west on 30N15 until it ran into 17 (the road we started on this morning!), then south on 17 back to 36, and from there straight back to our cabin. Basically we did a giant circle around Mineral today, largely on gravel roads, with lots and lots of side trips. It was a long day, and I was tired of driving.
When we got home, I made a chicken dinner -- roasted some chicken thighs with rosemary, made some rice with rosemary (my dad and I both love rosemary!), and made some succotash with frozen corn and baby limas. That "real" food sure tasted great! We washed it down with some of Trader Joe's cherry juice, which is good but is very, very acidic. I suspect you could remove rust with it. Both of us then headed for an early sleep...
