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Published: March 19th 2009
Mt. Diablo!
Taken by Storm!As I've journeyed across America some 4500 miles in the last two weeks I've had a lot of plans. However, with no one to be accountable to other than myself on most days, they have been quite easy to change! One such alteration which I'm quite happy about was my decision to push through the night to my cousin Jessica's house near San Francisco in order to join her husband Greg and my cousin Michael on a hike up Mt. Diablo early the next morning.
When we arrived at Mt. Diablo State Park, it quickly became apparent that none of us really knew much about the hike we were about to attempt. Although Greg had been up to the top of Mt. Diablo before, he had driven up, and this was his first hike in the area. Sensing this, as I stepped into the ranger's office to get change for the park entrance fee, I nabbed a pamphlets for the moderate and difficult hikes. Michael wasn't too thrilled with this - trails aren't his thing, he likes to walk his own path- Greg and I though were interested in making it to the top of Diablo and thus consulted the
Chasing Wiley Coyote
Turnabouts fair play, but we unfortunately had no ACME devices on hand. pictures inside and tried to make some sense of them. However, both pamphlets referred to the Trail Map that I had avoided buying for $5, and thus, although we could get a general sense of direction from the pamphlets I had, it was pretty vague.
Still, as we started down the only trail available from our parking lot, we saw several older ladies finishing hikes, and we figured our selection of the 7.4 mile each way loop up to Mt. Diablo's top was within our grasp. Off we went up a winding road at a 20-30 degree grade. The strain in my legs became apparent pretty immediately, and when Greg used his eagle eyes to spot a Coyote, we all breathed a sigh of relief to have our first respite from our upward trekking. The nonchalant coyote seemed quite content to relax as we meandered by, nor did he seem much concerned once we started taking pictures of him. Even as Michael moved ever closer - within 15 feet I'd say - the coyote never appeared nonplussed, and leisurely rose, stretched, and then sauntered away slowly from my cousins photographic pursuit.
With our legs rested by our short
First hill summited
Whew, the legs are a burning. You can see the parking lot down below. stint with the Coyote, all of us renewed our climb ready to put dirt behind us and reach the top of Mt. Diablo! It didn't take long though before Michael fell behind. Greg and I took a nice break and waited - Michael came up and exclaimed "My chicken legs weren't built for this!". Hah, carve your own path indeed we replied! Onwards we went, soon we were looking down from our first great vista, at our car several hundred feet below. WOW, what a great view we thought, click click click went our camers. Then we turned and saw a side trail that seemed to summit this first hill. Yep- we ought to take this trail up I said, and they agreed. Well, Greg anyway, about 20 feet down the trail, Michael decided that the switchback nature of the trail was not for him, and decided he would forge his own path of an incredibly twiggy fallen tree, spending an extra two minutes in the tangled brush to save 30 feet of trail trekking. The grade here had to be at least 35 degrees, probably higher, and it was a grueling climb to the top of the hill. When
Shade blood forges its own way
Michael and I run a different course than most, up some good scrambles! we arrived up top, we were happy to see a relatively flat trail stretching ahead for at least 600 feet. But we were all exhausted. We broke out our water and granola, and a bit of the homemade jerkey I had gotten in Kansas. (thinking of this jerkey still elicits a mouthwatering response for me). After a decent break of five minutes or so, we sized up our journey ahead. Which peak was Mt. Diablo we wondered. I looked at my map and the relative size of the Mountains around us, and declared that one off to the Southwest of us had a good chance of being it - unless of course this peak was hiding the actual Mt. Diablo behind it as it was hard to gauge the distance of the next peak, and although we were exhausted, it didn't seem as though we had trekked far enough horizontally to be nearing the end of the 7.4 miles of one way travel yet.
An hour later, with many a switch back, and much huffing and puffing and breaking, we stood upon the peak we had surveyed from the hill below, proud of our climb, and exhausted. As we
summited this peak though, we were disheartened to see that off in the distance was a much taller peak, and we realized our journey to climb Mt. Diablo was still in its infancy. Also during this stretch, I had begun to catch Michael's joy of the off-trail experience, and the two of us had left Greg to follow the beaten path while we seized the opportunity to scramble our own way up a steep and rocky avenue. The beauty of the area was that the trails we were walking were headed for the peak, so even though our scrambling was slower than the equivalent hiking up the switchbacks, we ended up in the same place as Greg eventually. The mountain itself had so far gone through a few changes in landscaping - with the rolling meadows of the coyote giving way to sparse tree cover, and then a trail that wound through an otherwise impervious thicket.
At this point, three major things happened. 1) We forgot to repack the Beef Jerkey into our backpacks...fairwell mouthwatering beef - I hope someone found you and put you to good use. 2) Michael whipped out his stormtrooper helmet and suit. 3) Greg
started thinking it would soon be time to reverse course and head DOWN??!?!?!??!?!
Fortunately, after years of hiking and climbing with my brother Kevin, I had a mantra in my repertoire to still such mutinous thoughts..."Down is not the appropriate direction...ALL Z WAY TO THE TOP!" This mantra, coupled with short-term objectives, coupled with some gross underestimations of distance "Look Greg - the summit is within BASEBALL RANGE"
Greg "What baseball player could hit a ball that far?"
Me, "The Babe would send a ball cruising far past easily-look how close that is- far shouldn't be uttered in describing this scene" (This all being said with a good 1.5 hours of hiking to go to the summit) and some backup from Michael: "That's not even baseball range, thats football range" and we continued to eke our way to the top.
One boon we had was that we only had two backpacks between three people, thus, when it was your turn to go for a bit without a backpack after lugging one of the hulking packs for a good 45 minutes-2 hours, you felt like you could fly with all the weight missing from your back.
Sometimes the beaten path...
Is the only path for the sane. And so it went, we trekked together until probably 400 vertical feet short of the summit. At this point, Michael and I were once again enticed by some solid looking scrambles. And thus, we told Greg we'd see him at the top and forged our own path once more, taking turns snapping pictures of the action. As we approached the stone lighthouse on the summit, Greg waved down at us - apparently the path was a bit more expedient than our climbing/photo shoot. Michael and I finished the climb in our own style though, scaling the wall of the lighthouse up to the viewing deck rather than going around it to the stairs.
After taking in the scenery and amazing views from the top, we met a kindly fellow who agreed to drive us down the mountain via the road on the South side (we had approached from the north). Luckily, my Cousin Jessica worked in the town we ended up in, and came and picked us up, then drove us the 45 minutes back around the mountain to retrieve Greg's car.
A sign at the summit states it is possible to view the second greatest surface area
Uh oh, that must be Mt. Diablo!
So...what are we on top of then? seen from any peak in the world, bested only by Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. According to Wikipedia however, this is a myth that was proclaimed by an early real estate promoter Robert Noble Burgess, who constructed the first roads to Diablo's summit in an effort to promote his nearby real estate project. The Mount Kilimanjaro qualifier was added a decade or so later when the lighthouse structure was built up top.
Even though this appears to be a bit of stretch, as there aren't any other major peaks in the area, you do get a very impressive view for as much as 100 miles in every direction. The limit of Mt. Diablo's viewing area ends up being its short overall height not causing the curvature of the earth to start blocking out some views, and only picking up the tops of mountains in the distance.
What really puts things in perspective though, is a calculation that shows that the viewshed from Mt. Denali - the mountain I will be working at this Summer in Alaska, is about three times greater. Also, the viewable area from other peaks such as Pike's Peak in Colorado over the great plains is
Eagle Peak...Check
Only 2400 feet of Elevation so far? Still over 1500 absolute vertical feet to go, with a lot of up and down along the way. supposed to incorporate more viewable area by pure square mileage. On the flip side though, the array of several different mountain ranges and bodies of water, as well as San Francisco, Oakland, the Golden Gate bridge and the Ocean...makes the view from Mt. Diablo one I definitely recommend at least driving up to take in should you be in the San Francisco Bay Area sometime in the future. At the end of the day - even if the viewing area is only 1/3 that of Denali's Summit - you get a lot more bang for your buck with Mt. Diablo - as to climb Denali can be an expedition that takes weeks and stands a much better chance of leaving being your last sight ever.
Greg by the way, thanked me for pushing for the top when he had began considering turning around, and generous fellow that he is, not only gave me a place to stay with plenty of Eggo's for two nights, he also bought my dinner and beer that night; I'm quite lucky to have so many great family members and friends spread throughout the West....especially with so many Hot Tubs-- or...in my buddy Anchi's case...a
Our Hike
Our car about 7 miles that way....we went up and down quite a bit. shower with two shower heads - which I guiltily tried out this week, knowing it wasn't my greenest moment, but at least, perhaps, one of my cleanest. But these Washington Stories are for another blog on another day.
As for the pictures below - to really get the full effect of most of these you have to click 'em to enlarge 'em.
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