Perched high on a balcony on the western slopes of California's High Sierra Mountain Range lies a tiny alpine valley only two miles long and a scant mile and a quarter wide.
Mineral King.
Its grandeur and name are derived from a series of high rock peaks that surround the King on three sides, rising up from the valley floor to heights of over 12,000 feet, Nature formed these mountains from layers of granite, slate and marble mixed with small deposits of copper, silver and even gold. Ice age glaciers sculptured the valley from these colorful mineral deposits and formed a U-shaped basin and the natural mosaic that constitutes the high crown of the king.
The King's Jewels
Over 20 gem-like lakes are set in high hanging valleys among the surrounding peaks. Six streams, fed by these reservoirs, tumble down the walls of the valley to form the headwaters of the east fork of the Kaweah River which begins at Mineral King.
Obscurity is a part of the reason for Mineral King's beauty. Its discovery was one of the very last in the exploration of this country.
In 1864, the Army was building a trail eastward across the Sierra range to Fort Independence. Harry O'Farrell, hunting meat for the Army, was the first white intruder to view the spectacle of Mineral King. O'Farrell came back to his secret hunting grounds many times thereafter.
In 1872, he was tracking a wounded deer in the valley when he came upon what he believed to be a rich vein of gold in Monarch Canyon. O'Farrell couldn't keep the secret. By the following year, 93 prospectors had filed claims at Mineral King: Thousands of dollars and years of sweat and blood were poured into these claims.
But finally, ironically, they produced little wealth, and soon all were abandoned. Mineral King, however, did not experience the quick death that other mining towns had. The miners' families lingered on … not for gold, but for the beauty of their new home.
Today it serves as a vacation spot for thousands of campers that come here each summer to roam in the valley and to explore the lakes and rivers of the back country.
In 1965, the United States Forest Service, custodian of Mineral King, sought bids from various developers to build a $3 million recreation facility in the valley, with ski lifts and accommodations for 100 overnight visitors.
Walt Disney Productions won a three-year permit to develop plans for the facility.
Three years later, Disney submitted blueprints for a $35 million recreation facility almost 12 times larger than the Forest Service had originally requested.
Plans for the project include swimming pools, specialty shops, Ice rinks, tennis courts, a golf course, a five-story hotel complex of 1,030 rooms designed to accommodate 3,310 over-night visitors, and 22 ski lifts [more than serve the combined facilities of Mammoth Mountain and Squaw Valley, site of the 1960 Winter Olympics] and an 8 to 10 level parking structure at the base of the valley. The facility is to handle up to 8,500 visitors daily.
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