Outside the picturesque town of Danville, California Mount Diablo welcomes you. It is interesting that California hosts a home for Diablo…some might say it is fitting while others just shrug their shoulders blissfully unaware of “Devil Mountain” rising just a short distance from the city of San Francisco (fyi: diablo means devil in Spanish).
Recently Spaceman and I took a drive up the state to visit friends and relatives and stumbled upon this state park. It is deceivingly beautiful with rolling hills, wild flowers, and blue skies above, however, Mount Diablo holds secrets of its own.
After paying the park entrance fee ($6 or $10 depending on which entrance gate you use), we ascended the hills toward our ultimate goal of reaching the summit and the visitor’s station on top. Halfway up, though, I realized (as I took a breath from the very interesting stories I was sharing) that Spaceman had been unusually quiet (even for a Finn). Turns out we were running on gas fumes and he was contemplating our best exit trail if we needed to hike out of the park in the sweltering heat. Luckily we were able to detour out of the park, find a gas station and then head back to Diablo.
By then the winding road had been hijacked by quite a few bicyclists (all of whom looked half dead as they panted up the hill) with some cars sprinkled in and the odd hiker here and there. Happily for us there were enough empty segments of park that we didn’t feel stifled by the others.
Along the twists and turns of the road, Mount Diablo revealed:
Packs of wild turkeys (or is it gaggles of wild turkeys?).
Slithering snakes (okay, it was a snake and a garden snake at that — harmless except for the fright factor).
Unidentifiable clouds of locust (you may not see them here, but they were there; tiny tyrants keeping us trapped in our car).
A family of deer — mom and her babies (I got so excited about this that I couldn’t get my camera out quickly enough to take a picture, oops).
All in all, it was a good day.
Details: Mount Diablo State Park California
Sounds like a great trip. There is a great golf course called Diablo CC and it used to be a Race Track. quite a few SF politicans lived in this area, really an interesting area. We will hit this the next time we are in the wine country
How very cool! We didn’t hit the links this trip (or any…yet). We’ll definitely check it out when we are there next . I really loved this area.
Oh my gosh! Another destination to add to my Bucket List! I’ve heard of Mt. Diablo before but never have seen pictures!! The gas story is so familiar….we seem to find ourselves in that situation far too often!
Thanks for sharing this neat spot!!