Mt. Diablo

This weeks hike was Mount Diablo and it is the Devil's Mountain! It was six and half hours of mostly torture, yes torture. It started out just beautifully, look at this picture from the top - yes top of the mountain. We started at the top and went down, down, down

We made it to a place called Rock City for lunch. It is a collection of sandstone rocks that pop out of the ground in one location in the park. There were stairs

There was a fountain, well maybe not a fountain, but it would be a nice one, huh?

There was one formation that looked like Half Dome and I tried to convince my hiking partners that we should go there and take pictures, it has steps and cables and maybe we could convince those not in the know that we had in fact climbed Half Dome. They thought about it for a minute, but decided honesty is the best policy.

The wildflowers were just at their peak. California poppies covered the hillsides along with lupin, daisies and a beautiful ground cover that had beautiful little coral flowers mixed in with small green leaves. It was beautiful, really beautiful.

And then we looked back from where we had come and I realized I gotta go back up that?

And I did! For almost four hours! Up and up and up. Every time I made it to the top of one segment I wondered if I could do it. Our nature guy told us at the begining of the hike that there were rattle snakes on the mountain, but don't worry because you won't die from a bite, you will be a bit uncomfortable for awhile, but you would live. I thought of this on the way up and decided I would rather be bit by a rattle snake then go one step further. At least then I could sit down and wait for a ride. But I kept going and going and going and did finally make it to the top.

For all my previous hikes I have kept the maps because I plan to go back and do them again. This map? I gave it to a runner who was lost cause there is no way I will ever do this particular hike again, so I don't need the damn map.

I look at Mt. Diablo every day, it looks beautiful from a distance and I think that is about as close as I will get for awhile.