Mt. Diablo, California 3/30

[leaf]

I was out in California visiting a good friend I hadn't seen in almost 6 years who lives about 30 minutes east of Oakland. I gave myself a four-day weekend, so when Monday rolled around I thought it would be fun to hike up Mt. Diablo in the morning. It's a popular mountain just under 4,000 feet complete with an auto road, observatory and little museum at the summit. It's said you can see more from the top of that mountain then the top of Kiliminjaro. It looks impressive since it's an isolated mountain - it looked like there's nothing above 2,000 feet in the area. The closest I think it Mt. St. Helena in the north end of Napa Valley at 4,000ish feet.

I got dumped off at the South Gate Entrance at 8:15ish and was on my way. I didn't have a trail map so I figured if I followed the trail named "Summit Trail" then it would hopefully lead me to the summit. There looked like more 'interesting' trails at the northern end of the park, but it would have taken another hour or so to drive there and my priority was spending time with my friends, so I told them to drop me off at the closest and most convienent trailhead. The summit trail spends time paralleling and crossing the auto road and it's a wide multi-use trail.. but, hey, I found it very hard to complain about since it was Monday and I wasn't in my office cubicle but walking around California under clear blue skies and nice 70 degree temps. It actually looked like a great mountain bike and I saw a number of bike tire tracks as well as horseshoe prints.

From the gate it was 6 miles to the summit. I didn't see any other hikers or people until I got up the summit, which was especially nice. The trail starts out in a oak grove savannah type environ and then eventually gets into a shruby chapparal scene. The rolling hills were super green and alot of the oak trees had mistletoe on them. The orange poppies were out as well as the wildlife. Alot of bluebirds, scrub jays (which was my first sighting of these! exciting!), rabbits and deer. I even encountered a coyote on the trail who gave me a good look over before trotting off.

Mt. Diablo is volcanic and the trail was hardened clay, super smooth and easy to walk on. Nice informative signs told me I was walking over different periods of time along the way, from the cretaceous to the jurassic period caused from the uplifting of certain layers of the earth's crust. I got to walk over a fault line, also. Pretty cool. Actually, at around 10:30, there was an earthquake that measured 4.0 on the richter scale, but I never felt it. Too bad.

I hit the summit a little before 11 a.m. and found it to be quite windy! The ranger up there said the gusts were up to 47 mph. Pretty impressive. I had views of San Francisco, the Pacific Ocean and also the Sierra Nevadas way out there to the east. The snow covered mountains looked like a small distant cloud layer. It was wild. My friend drove up to the summit, checked out the views and plucked me off and we drove down. It was a great morning for my last day on a super good trip out west.

I took some pictures which I'll post later tonight, or tomorrow, since I just flew in on the red-eye, and I'm exhausted.

 

[Gillian]

Sounds like a lovely hike Leaf, especially with the wildlife sightings. I want to do the hike you did on Saturday in the Nappa Valley.....

 

[mookie]

I was out in California visiting a good friend

nice try!
you think people are going to believe you?

 

[mirabela]

Neat! Mt. Diablo is great. I used to take groups of students hiking there when I taught in the Bay Area. It is a complex mountain, with an array of interesting ridges and ravines, and although the surrounding area is heavily populated there are some trails up there where you can go all day without seeing much of anyone. I'd be hard pressed to name them or give directions now, but there is a group of excellent top-rope climbing crags on the south side of the mountain, also. It's nice rock. This is just about the best time of year out there, too -- still cool, still green. It can be brutal up there in summer.

 

[Neil]

Nice! I'm still recovering from the traverse.

 

[leaf]

Here's the PICS.