Breathing Easy

I’m not one to take impromptu vacations. I’m neither in the financial
position to drop that kind of luxury cash nor inclined to take off at
a moments notice for parts northeast. But early Friday morning that’s
exactly what I did: a vacation to Sequoia National Park’s picturesque
Mineral King fell in my lap thanks to a generous invitation
from my girlfriend’s parents (who had rented a cabin for the weekend
but couldn’t make it up thanks to an emergency). After hours of
hemming and hawing my girlfriend finally convinced me by playing the
history card: Mineral King is a long honored tradition for her family
dating back to her great-grandparents, four generations can’t be
wrong. And they weren’t! We saw tarantulas, creeks, deer, California
quails, streams, We stayed in the same place Kelly’s family had
always stayed in—the Silver City Resort—where we lived with
no electricity, phones or cell reception (the lights and fridge were
propane fueled, the heat provided by fireplace). After two days and one night the fireplace heat proved insufficient
to sustain us. The entire Silver City resort had to shut down a week
early due to the weekend’s extremely cold weather, which froze the
pipes solid. We left in a hurry mere minutes after we returned from a
6+ mile hike up to White Chief Bowl. Despite the hasty exit,
I can’t say enough good things about the place: Mineral King—and its
surrounding Sequoia subalpine biome—was so drastically outside our
norm that it’s made settling back home a slow and painful reentry
back to the routine. Our current smoke and ash laden air only adds
insult to injury. The sooner I can get back, the better.

Photos by Kevin Ferguson. Take a look at my Mineral King flickr set here.