Mineral King Road/Mountain Route 375/The once proposed CA 276

[Max Rockatansky]

I wasn't really sure if I ought to put this here or in the Road Trip section.  I thought California since this was only a couple hours from home and is mainly a "Californian Road" oriented excursion into the Sierras.  So basically, before today I had been to pretty much everywhere in Sequoia and Kings Canyons National Parks with the exception of Mineral King and by proxy Mineral King Road.  So got my butt out of bed early today and pulled off of CA 198 at about 6:50 AM.  The history of Mineral King Valley and Mineral King Road is fascinating to me...so here is my abridged version on what I know followed by a link to what will likely be the most accurate information that can be found online.

Anyways...so basically Mineral King Road is a 25 mile roadway built from the Middle Fork Kaweah River/East Fork Kaweah River confluence in modern day Three Rivers up from approximately 1,000 feet above sea level roughly follow the East Fork Kaweah River to Mineral King Valley at approximately 7,400 feet above sea level.  Basically a large number of silver claims were found in Mineral King Valley in 1872 leading to Mineral King Road being opened in 1873.  Basically my understanding is that mining was really the thing until about 1890 when Atwell Mills was absorbed by the new Sequoia National Park which led to a tourism boom.  Apparently the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake took out all the mining buildings in Silver City and the community aptly named Mineral King....so this ain't the place to go if you want historic mining structures.  Mineral King Road had a realignment in 1915 near Three Rivers which led to the road alignment still in use today.  Supposedly the Disney Corporation won a bid to build a ski resort in the late 1960s but that plan was nixed when Mineral King Valley was annexed by Sequoia National Park in 1978.  Apparently to according to another user in one of the other California threads had the ski resort come to fruition that it would have led to Mineral King Road being upgraded to a state highway.  Now with that in mind...if you want a more detailed description on the Valley and Road, there is plenty of information available here:

http://www.mineralking.org/Living_Historic_Community/The_Community_and_the_Park.htm

Now with that in mind I did my photo album largely in reverse due to the sun glare coming uphill.  Basically this is a fun as hell road and from everything that I've driven over the years by far the most difficult paved road in the State of California.  I would recommend this road highly for anyone looking for a badass mountain drive...BUT...only if you are okay with driving 15-25 MPH, aren't afraid of heights, don't hug blind corners and know how to use low gear to engine brake.

Now with that in mind here is the good stuff from Mineral King Road starting with Mineral King Valley working back down the 25 miles to CA 198:







-  Starting from the top Mineral King Road crosses a small wooden bridge over the East Fork Kaweah and dead ends in Mineral King Valley in a parking lot.  There was some older post 1906 cabins in the area, nothing structurally too engrossing to catch the eye.  The Valley itself was freaking beautiful and I would really like to come back up here with some camping gear maybe some time in September.  I wasn't really equipped for a long walk or hike and all the "active bear area" signs really curtailed wandering off too far.  The road in Mineral King is paved but it is largely single lane only, I had a hard time even getting by a Jetta approaching the bridge in the picture.



-  Heading down from Mineral King to Silver City the roadway goes down to dirt for a couple miles.  I would speculate that this is asphalt with a top layer of dirt given how smooth the surface was.  So basically the two dirt sections actually are fairly decent for a dirt road but the asphalt as a whole is in terrible shape.  I'm to understand that Silver City is at 6,900 feet and it had a decent old 1929 general store with a mechanical gas pump.




-  Heading downhill I passed through apparently a place called Cabin Cove and entered Atwell Mills at about 6,300 feet.  Atwell Mills was a site of a sawmill during the mining heydays along Mineral King Road in the 1870s.  I'm to understand that this was part of the original plot of land that Sequoia National Park was laid out on in 1890 and I would speculate that's why mill operations stopped.  I didn't see any remains of a mill but there was a lot of redwood stumps along Mineral King Road.  This would be the second dirt section of the road and in my opinion better than the first between Silver City and Mineral King Valley.








I probably should say that I used my Sonic LT 1.4L turbo today since it's narrow and short.  Basically from about 5,500 feet to 2,700 I had to use 1st or 2nd gear for the most part to conserve my brakes.  I'm not sure what the grade is in this section coming out of the tree line but I would speculate there is a lot of 10% plus from eyeballing it.  Thankfully nobody was really coming my way which made it easier to dodge the vehicles coming up hill.  I had the cliff wall heading down hill which meant I had to slide over where I could find an opening to take pictures of the downhill grades in Mineral King Road.  I stopped at the Sequoia National Park pay station at about 4,000 to grab a snack...there was some weirdos in a Prius wearing purple with kids asking "what happens to the dog blind in one eye." 







Somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,500 feet Mineral King Road passes from the north bank of the East Fork Kaweah River to the south bank via the Kaweah Bridge.  Apparently this thing was built in 1923 and has a metric crap ton of old Californian flavor.  The design looks really similar to a lot state highway bridges, especially stuff found in the 20s and 30s.  I never have seen anything showing an LRN on Mineral King Road but I would speculate that it was a little something more than Tulare County that build the Kaweah Bridge...I could be wrong though since that's just speculation. 




The portion of Mineral King Road to CA198/Sierra Highway was the most dicey not because of maintenance but because there was a lot of uphill traffic coming in groups that were going blind through corners.  I love how people in small cars feel the need to cut corners in the road when they have plenty of room on their side....  Anyways, for as poor as the road maintenance on Mineral King Road is there one thing that is maintained well....the Mount Route mile markers.  I didn't see a single mileage marker missing the entire downhill descent, apparently Mineral King Road is Route 375. 

So with that in mind I'm curious about something now that I've taken the trip Mineral King Road.  In Visalia you have a frontage road of CA 198 called Mineral King Avenue which I'm assuming was the surface alignment prior to the freeway being built.  Was there a point in time that Mineral King Avenue was named as such all the way to Three Rivers and Mineral King Road?  I know that the Generals Highway was finished in the 1930s up to Grant Grove and I have zero idea when the "Sierra Highway" name was put in place.  Anyways fun road, sucks that I couldn't go Wednesday and hopefully Sherman Pass Road is as fun as I remember it next week.

[Max Rockatansky]

Apparently the pre-1923 Kaweah Bridge was a wooden:



And it fell apart in 1920:



I'm not sure of the age of the bridge above but apparently crossing the Kaweah required a toll back in 1883:



Pretty decent time lapse from Atwell Mill to CA 198...pretty interesting to see a kid trying that road:

[Max Rockatansky]

Apparently a State Highway on Mineral King Road was really a thing when it looked like Disney would get it's resort....CA 276...courtesy cahighways.com:

http://www.cahighways.org/273-280.html#276

[sparker]

Nice pix -- also thanks for acquiring the time-lapse of the downhill run -- kudos to the female passenger for tolerating that particular road trip; my GF wouldn't respond well if I suggested anything similar (more like responding with a raised middle finger!).  Back in '82, when I was visiting my then-fiancee' (Fresno-area attorney, now Ex #2), I almost took a road trip out that way to see if there were any "276" paddles to be seen, but got sidetracked (literally), taking pix of RR citrus-loading activities around Orosi and Dinuba.
Barely got back to Fresno in time for dinner (she would have handed my ass to me otherwise).  But now that I've seen the road, I'm relieved that I didn't make the attempt at that time -- I was driving her more-than-precious MBZ that day -- dodged a bullet!   

[Max Rockatansky]

Yeah that's funny, I was thinking the same thing when I saw patience that guy's girlfriend was.    My wife was working that particular day but I know better than to ask her, I made her sick to her stomach just in Salt River Canyon on US 60 back out in Arizona.  She didn't go on the trip I took out in the Rockies due to her not liking heights and mountain road...makes me wonder how she and my daughter are going to handle October. 

And that's the thing, there is actually a crap ton of light duty truckers running up that road.  One guy was even pulling a horse trailer uphill around Atwell Mills, I'm surprised he would wait so long in the day to try.  The Sonic was definitely the right tool for the job for handing Mineral King.  I guess that Caltrans kind of concluded that the original proposed route for 276 was a little too expensive given that scaled it back from Mineral King to Oak Grove.  Basically that would have probably had the state route ending somewhere near the Kaweah Bridge which even still would have been one hell of an effort to carve that out.  There is actually quite a few 198 reassurance markers the last four miles on the approach to Three Rivers, I guess people get side tracked.

The mining activity has got me intrigued, I'm thinking that it might be worth a return trip and stay just to see if I can find some stuff out in the valley or in the woods that was trashed by the 1906 earthquake.  Really this about the only significant mining location I know of that was south of Mariposa on the western flank of the Sierras.

[Max Rockatansky]

Found some interesting older maps from Tulare County showing Mineral King Road:

1919:

http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/839403/Tulare+County+1919+Map/Tulare+County+1919+-+Automobile+Road+Map/California/

Interestingly North Fork Road is shown as the only way up to the Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park.  Rumor is that the road can still be traversed to the Giant Forest north of Kaweah but I have my doubts based off the modern park map showing North Fork as a hiking trail:

https://www.nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/maps.htm

Also interesting about the 1919 map is that it shows Kings Canyon National Park as General Grant National Park.

This is an ACSC map from 1948:

http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/158724/Tulare+County+1948+Road+Map/Tulare+County+1948+Road+Map/California/

On this map you can see Mineral King itself isn't part of Sequoia National Park yet but Atwell Mills is.  Looks like I was right about 198 running on Mineral King Avenue and it seems my theory about Lacey Blvd to Hanford (which I didn't mention previous) was correct as well and not Grangeville/Goshen.  North Fork Road is still showing intact as an unpaved road by 1948 and CA 245 shows as CA 65.  Looks like Western Divide Highway is barely there at the eastern end of 190 and Sherman Pass Road doesn't exist yet. Nine Mile Canyon seems to as an unpaved road out in Inyo County.  I'm assuming that older ACSC didn't show LRNs since I'm seeing signed state highways here so it really doesn't answer the question if the Division of Highways had anything to do with the 1923 Kaweah Bridge on Mineral King Road.

Regardless, it looks like North Fork Road is going to merit further exploration when I'm in the area next.  And too bad Scott hasn't been around, he would probably get a kick out of the 1948 map.

Edit:  North Fork Road splits has a split off called the Colony Mill Road or trail....as it's known now.  That would have been the 1903 road built up to the Giant Forest.  Apparently Middle Fork Road replaced North Fork and Colony Mill which eventually became the Generals Highway.  Anyways, I'll get a full look here sooner or later and see what's left to see...always up for an abandoned roadway excursion.

[sparker]

Some of the older ACSC county/regional maps usually showed unsigned LRN's (such as the portion of LRN 132 between LRN 130 and the city of Orange Cove; SSR 63 came up 132 north of Visalia but turned east on 130 before terminating at SSR 65/LRN 129) as thicker lines than that of county roads.  Since pre-1964 the Valley was littered with LRN's that didn't have SSR signage, most ACSC and CSAA maps did make an effort to delineate such routes by graphics rather than numerical designation.  They occasionally slipped up; I recall seeing "123" shields on a CSAA regional map from the late 50's located where CA 59 is today (the LRN for that route was indeed 123!).  Other local state highways without SSR signage pre-'64 included current 184, 223, 155, 137, 216, 201, 233, and 202 (although I understand that 202 is in the process of relinquishment as this is written!).  43 and 59 weren't signed as SSR's until about 1960; the signage of 178 (now 58) west of 33 (McKittrick) to US 101 was deployed about that time as well.   

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm catching up more on the pre-64 LRNs as time goes by, obviously I wasn't around at the time.  The cahighways page has been useful seeing the legislative history and the site I used in my previous post has been generating some reasonably decent sources of information with maps...at least when I'm looking for historic route alignments.  Really the thing that throws me often compared to something like pre-45 Florida or pre-76 Nevada is that the field signage in California often was more or less what is still used today.  I'd Florida and Arizona are really where my expertise lies, maybe I'll catch on this state someday....at least there is still some obscure roads finds to still be had.  Los Gatos Creek Road and the Parkfield Grade have also caught my interest out in the Diablos...

[Max Rockatansky]

Just noticed something on that 48 Tulare Map, CA 180 is running east on Dunlap Road to 65 just north of Badger.  180 looks to have taken modern CA 245 up north to where it swings east to Kings Canyon...interesting.

[Max Rockatansky]

Two years helps massively with getting more concise information lined up.  I redid this entry on the Surewhynotnow blog and Gribblenation Facebook page:

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2018/09/mineral-king-roadmountain-road-375.html

[sparker]

^^^^^^^
Nice revisiting these photos after 2 years.  You mentioned in a previous post in this thread that you thought the Kaweah River arch bridge looked very much like other state highway bridges of the time.  It seems that the Division of Highways didn't mind sharing their basic designs with county or local agencies; there are several similar bridges on county highways in the San Gabriel Mountains as well, particularly on Angeles Forest Highway and Big Tujunga Canyon Road.     

[Max Rockatansky]

^^^^^^^
Nice revisiting these photos after 2 years.  You mentioned in a previous post in this thread that you thought the Kaweah River arch bridge looked very much like other state highway bridges of the time.  It seems that the Division of Highways didn't mind sharing their basic designs with county or local agencies; there are several similar bridges on county highways in the San Gabriel Mountains as well, particularly on Angeles Forest Highway and Big Tujunga Canyon Road.     

There is another on J37 that I know with almost 100% certainty that has Division of Highways influence on a County maintained roadway.  The time the Kaweah Bridge was being built is very close to when the Division of Highways improved access on LRN 10 to the Middle Fork Road in Sequoia National Park (the modern Generals Highway) with the Pumpkin Hollow Bridge. It's likely after the 1920 Kaweah Bridge collapse that Tulare County needed all the help it could get on Mineral King Road.

[Max Rockatansky]

Made a return trip out to Mineral King Road today:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/151828809@N08/KTER13

I noted the following on Gribblenation:

Mineral King Road is a 24.8 mile roadway which originates in Three Rivers near the confluence of the Middle Fork and East Fork Kaweah River and terminates to the east in Mineral King Valley . Mineral King Road has an approximate starting elevation at about 1,400 feet above sea level in Three Rivers and ends at approximately 7,800 feet above sea level in Mineral King Valley of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mineral King Road has an average grade of 5.1% but has stretches between 15-20% in places between Oak Grove and Atwell Mills.

A large silver claim at the White Chief Mine was struck in Mineral King Valley in 1872. Previous trails to Mineral King Valley were fleshed out which lead to the creation of Silver City six miles west of Mineral King Valley later in the year. The first Mineral King Road via proxy of Silver City was built by the Visalia and Inyo Wagon Company in 1873 on the south side of the East Fork Kaweah River. Construction second on a second Mineral King Road began in 1879 the north side of the East Fork Kaweah River in 1879, this alignment largely is the same as the current roadway. The second Mineral King Road was managed by the Mineral King and Toll Road Company until it was deeded to Tulare County in 1884. There were some major realignments on Mineral King Road in 1915 but it essentially was under Tulare County maintenance completely until the National Park Service absorbed the Mineral King Valley in Sequoia National Park. Mineral King Road today is maintained by the National Park Service east of Lookout Point and as Tulare Mountain Road 375 west of it.

The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake destroyed most of the original mining buildings the Mineral King Valley mining district which generally consisted of cabins and shack. Mineral King Road was improved for Automobile use in the 1920s along with access to most of Sequoia National Park. The Disney Corporation won a bid to build a ski resort in the late 1960s but Mineral King Valley was annexed by Sequoia National Park in 1978 which ended the aspirations. Mineral King Road was slated to become California State Route 276 and was first defined in 1965 along a routing between Three Rivers to Mineral King Valley. The definition of CA 276 was truncated from Three Rivers to the Sequoia National Park boundary in Oak Grove in 1972.

The below album includes an easterly drive up Mineral King Road from CA 198, a round trip hike (approximately 6 miles) to the White Chief Mine on the East Fork Kaweah River, and a drive westbound on Mineral King Road to CA 198. The White Chief Mine Trail starts at an elevation of 7,830 feet above sea level and ends at the namesake mine 2.9 miles later at 9,445 feet above sea level.

[Max Rockatansky]

Yesterday I took a day trip out to Mineral King via the namesake Mineral King Road to hike out to the White Chief Mine.  The mines around Mineral King started to take off following a strike being made in White Chief Canyon during 1872.  By 1879 much of the current Mineral King Road was constructed as a wagon route.  The remaining 5.25 mile segment of modern Mineral King Road was completed bypass of the River Hill Grade during 1913.  By 1958 Tulare County made a petition for an all weather State Highway to be built to Mineral King in the pursuit of having a ski area built there.  Subsequently CA 276 was added by the State Legislature during 1965 and the Disney Corporation began interested in building a ski resort.  Ultimately CA 276 was scaled back and the ambitions for a ski resort were largely crushed by environmental interests which culminated in Mineral King being added to Sequoia National Park during 1978. 

Below is an addition to the original 2018 Gribblenation article on Mineral King Road.  The historic section was greatly expanded and now includes much more of the history of what came before Mineral King Road and some of the bizarre ideas like Disney's concept for a cog railway.  A section was added for the uphill drive on Mineral King Road in addition to the hike the White Chief Mine.  Mineral King Road is a 24.8 mile highway which follows the East Fork Kaweah River from Three Rivers at a starting elevation of 1,400 feet above sea level to 7,830 feet above sea level in Mineral King itself.  Mineral King Road while paved has numerous segments where the grade exceeds 20% and a roadway that is entirely a single lane.  If you're looking for a back country drive that has historical significance and ends up at some place cool then Mineral King Road is as good as starting point as any.

https://www.gribblenation.org/2018/09/mineral-king-roadmountain-road-375.html

https://www.gribblenation.org/2018/09/mineral-king-roadmountain-road-375.html