Irrelevance Glorified

So, this week I was determined to do Diablo. Mt. Diablo is a prominent “mountain” out in the East Bay, just east of the San Ramon valley. Summer is not the best time to do Mt. Diablo. In fact, its the worst time. But I was determined to hike Diablo in the Summer, if nothing else but for the experience to contrast it with a winter hike. And, since I’m a manly man, there’s no doubt that I could handle any heat related issues. For a change of pace, though, I would have some hiking partners this time. You see, Freshman Dan lives in Dublin, right at the base of the Mt. Diablo State Park!

I will explain the etymology of “Freshman Dan” because it amuses me so. You see, back in grad school at UIUC, Dan joined our group as an undergraduate worker when he was a freshman in Chemical Engineering. We enjoyed his contributions to the group, but there was a problem — we already had a graduate student named Dan. Clearly, we couldn’t call them both Dan; that would just lead to confusion. So Dan H. remained Dan, and Dan B. became Freshman Dan. Dan eventually stopped being a freshman, and actually transferred out East, coming back to Illinois for his senior year. But he still remains Freshman Dan to this day.

Dan is in East Bay working for Clorox, and he was game for hiking. Sure, it was supposed to be hot — a forecast high of 92. But I was planning on leaving my place before 8 am (on a Saturday!) and driving up to Dan’s. Dan, Ashley (his wife), and I would drive to Diablo, hike, and be off the mountain before it got hot. That was the plan, at least. Of course, we didn’t get around to leaving his place till almost 9 or so. Also, he lived near the southern end of Diablo, and the trailhead I had picked out was at the North End. So it was probably almost 10 am before we got up there and on the trailhead. We all had Camelbak’s, but Dan’s wasn’t fully tightened, so it leaked a whole bunch by the time we parked.

The trail I had picked out covered 7.8 miles and a little bit shy of 2000 feet of net elevation change. We started off on Mitchell Canyon Trail, a boring old fire road which was flat long enough to make you fear the steepness that you knew had to come. After the first climb, we were pretty tired, but encouraged at our progress, and stopped to rest at a pair of picnic tables. Continuing on, we staggered up the (excessively) steep fire road, periodically passed by people on horseback. I felt bad for the horses. They clearly shared our feeling as to the degree of the grade of this part of the trail. Finally, we made our way to the Eagle Peak Trail, which departed from the fire road and followed the crest of Diablo in the form of a thin hiking only trail. The views were nice, if hazy.

This hike would have been better if I had been smart enough to postpone it for nicer weather. When you combine our late start with the fact that it hit 102 degrees (at least), clearly the hottest day of the year, we quickly came upon the edges of heat exhaustion. My water ran out with probably 1.5 miles to go, and my backup Gatorade went quickly as well. I was trying to figure out if I had “stopped sweating”, a sure sign of severe dehydration, but I couldn’t tell, because the sweat was evaporating so fast that all I found was salt. There are no pictures from the last 1/4 of the hike, because I was just concentrating on shuffling from meager shade to meager shade, fighting the urge to take a nap. It was quite a relief when we rounded the last corner and saw the parking lot.

After I stuck my head underneath the restroom sink and doused myself, and gulped down water that I had left in the car (yeah, I didn’t actually carry all the water I brought), we went out and got giant Slurpees from 7-11. I consumed mine in about 20 minutes tops. For perspective, I went back to 7-11 two weeks later (on 7/11) to get their free 7.11 oz Slurpee, and I could barely finish the thing. Ah, the magic of dehydration. I give this hike a B, although I suspect I’ll think better of it when I come back in the Fall/Winter.

Anyways, enough talking. Flickr set here.
Slideshow below.
Images and descriptions after the jump.

 

One of the first things I noticed on this hike was some gigantic pine cones off to the side. Like, seriously huge, nearly the size of my noggin. I guess the trees are finding ways to fight back.

 

We started off on a fire road, my least favorite type of trail. We shared our path with a few people on horseback and a few crazy joggers. At this point, we still had high hopes, strong legs, and lots of water. Our path had just started to climb, and we were nearing a small group of picnic tables. You can see the mountain leading up to Eagle Peak on the right…that’s where we were headed!

 

At this points, we’re still working our way to the local maxima. But I think that the water that I’m seeing up Northish are the Grizzly (East) and San Pablo (West) Bays.

 

Instead of looking northwest, I can also turn around and see what lies in the other valley. Uh…not much. I think I’m looking at the town of Clayton.

 

Up to this point, we had been walking on boring old fire roads. But now, we were starting on the Eagle Peak trail, a hiking-only trail that follows the crest of Mount Diablo.
This picture courtesy of Ashley.

 

Ashley was nice enough to take a picture of Dan and me as we took a break on the crest.

 

You know, looking back, I don’t even remember which side of the Less Filling/Tastes Great debate each of us was on. All I remember is that the argument escalated quickly and violently.

 

Luckily, Dan began to see things my way.

 

I like this because I’m pretty sure I can use this shot in the future to superimpose myself on any manner of summits or environments.

 

Finally, we had arrived at Eagle Peak. Elevation 2369. Not even the highest portion of Mount Diablo, but the highest point of our hike.

 

Been looking online and I’ve found a couple of different names for this quarry. Kaiser Quarry….Clayton Quarry…whatever. There’s a whole lot of stuff missing from the side of this mountain.

 

I have no idea if this is really a Cobweb Thistle. I just did a google search for "Thistle" and "Diablo" and found something very similar. Anyways, this is the last picture, because I was on the verge of heat stroke and wasn’t really concerned with taking pictures.

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