Crowds enjoy all Mountain Festival has to offer

CAMP NELSON — One of the main concerns for this year’s Mountain Festival, Saturday and Sunday in the meadow at Camp Nelson, was that the Wishon and Lion fires would literally cast a dark cloud over the event. With the perfectly clear blue sky, and a breeze blowing through the trees surrounding the meadow, Mountain Festival organizer Michelle Ray was very happy to see that she had nothing to worry about.

“We couldn’t have asked for any better weather,” Ray said. “Not too hot, not too smoky.

There seem to be a lot of people coming. We’ve got lots of food and craft booths.”

Between the amount of people she saw walking around the booths and the fact that the parking area for the festival was nearly-full, Ray felt there was a very good turn out to the event, which she and her fellow organizers worked hard to make a family-friendly atmosphere. There was plenty for children to do, various toss games and a sack race, as well as demonstration booths from local public safety agencies, such as the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department and the Camp Nelson Fire Department. The Forest Service two-man log sawing demonstration was also popular.

“Most kids find it challenging. It’s kind of a cool step back in time,” Jerry Olson, of Engine 24, said. “For us on the engine, it’s a nice way to see the public and give something back.”

Mica Blonshine, 14, who was working with her youngest sister, Brie, 6, to slice off a bit of the log found that it was pretty intense labor.

“It was hard. It hurt my back but it was fun,” Mica said. “We did it before when we were younger.”

The kid’s craft booth ran by the DeGrosse sisters, Melissa and Margo, was another popular stop for children. Brandi Kanady, and her daughter Kayzlynne, 5, were taking advantage of the DeGrosse sister’s booth, which donates its proceeds to the Upper Tule Association.

“The kids like things to do,” Melissa DeGrosse said, noting why she and her sister decided to offer a booth that sold crafts and toys. “We’ve been doing this for a few years. The kids have so much fun.”

“We have more fun, I think, than the kids do,” Margo added.

Kanady said her family regularly attended the Mountain Festival. Kayzlynne had found plenty to do; her favorite activity of the day was the bouncy house.

“We did the tortilla toss and the balloon toss and we won prizes,” Kayzlynne said as her mother helped her decorate a visor hat at the craft booth. “Now I’m making a crown.

“We’ve been coming up here for a couple of years. It’s nice, family fun activities. We like the shopping,” Kanady said.

Last year, the DeGrosse sisters made over $700 to donate. Melissa noted that the festival had grown this year, and, according to Ray, there were twice as many vendors as usual, with a total of 50 booths, half of them festival first-timers, some so involved in the festival that they’d ran booths since the festival was held in Quaking Aspen.

Because of the local nature of the festival, many of the crafters selling their wares were local as well. Dianne Burke, who owns Sequoia Gourd Art, for instance, has been participating as a festival-goer for years but has never been able to man a booth the full-day, because her former job always conflicted with her ability to do so. However, this year was different.

“This year I decided to have my own,” Burke said of the booth, saying that she was selling many of her less expensive items. “I’ve been selling ornaments pretty fast.”

Not that she was concerned about her profits.

“It’s just a lot of fun to participate, a lot of nice people. I enjoy it whether I sell anything or not,” Burke said.

The Mountain Festival was first held in 1986 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Camp Nelson, which was first founded to provide a cooler summer haven for people that live in the Valley.

The meadow where the festival is held is a part of the John M. Nelson Conservancy, which has converted a pool house right outside of the meadow into a small museum to the area.

The festival offered the opportunity for those interested in the area’s local history to meet and have a book signed by author Malcolm Sillars, who wrote “The Tule River Middle Fork and Its People”, a book available in both the Porterville and Springville libraries.