Mt Diablo Summit Trail

• Best suited for trail running, mountain biking or for a nice hike during the winters. Ample water required if you plan to hike up to the summit and back on a hot summer day. I’d suggest starting the hike as early as 6am in the summers.

• Rock city area is a great place for kids not just by age but also by spirit.

• Wildflowers can be found along the trail during late spring and early summer.

• Mt. Diablo visitor center at the top - Timings (open 10am - 4pm)

Links: State Park website, Map PDF, MDAS.

Rock city area

Flora and fauna in the Mt. Diablo area

Diablo (Spanish) translates to “Devil” in English and the story behind the name is rather interesting. Wikipedia covers the history of Mt. Diablo in depth, enough to fulfill your inquisitive desires. This state park welcomes trail runners, mountain bikers and hikers out for a challenge. If you are hiking the summit trail like we did, its a steep climb from rock city (We - Kaustubh, Anshuman and I). The arid weather is very evident in the fauna visible along the trail. The browns lined with few green shrubs provides this desert perspective to the place. The summit trail criss-crosses the summit road multiple times making emergency exits possible during most hikes in the Diablo area.

Devils’ elbow 3480’; one of the intersections of the summit trail with the road marks proximity to the summit which is perched at 3849’. It was 8:56am by the time we reached the top putting us at around ~2hr 30mins one way (6 miles) accounting time for photography and a bunch of fooling around in rock city. Summit road goes all the way to the summit which makes the summit a touristy destination catering to motored weekend getaway enthusiasts. During the day it's almost impossible to find a spot at the very tiny parking lot here. At 8:50am just ~50mins after gates open, the summit wasn’t too bad. We had the observatory deck to ourselves for a brief amount of time.

The place where the old hotel stood during olden times along the mud road to the top - now the summit trail

The visitor center up here houses a ranger station and a small museum. It also plays a movie of the park during its working hours which is between 10am and 4pm. Since we were here by 9am, we did not get to spend time at the visitor center. On a clear day in winter, you could see the white snow capped sierras if you looked to the east/north-east and the Golden Gate bridge if you looked in the west/north-western direction. This day was clear enough to see the mountains but the sun was pretty bright. Carrying sun shades would definitely be a good idea along with binoculars if you plan to spend some time at the summit and hope to see the far away mountains

Since we wanted to be back home for lunch, our descent was quick. The entire hike took us about 5hrs and we covered about 12 miles that day.

View from the summit of Mt. Diablo