It’s peak wildflower season in the Bay Area and I wanted a hike with lots of views and lots of blooms. A loop over three peaks around Mount Diablo promised a little challenge, some big views, and tons of wildflowers, so I decided on that.
Elizabeth and I got to the trailhead at the Juniper Campground at 9. It was a sunny morning with a crisp, cool breeze. We had an excellent view of the sprawl-filled San Ramon Valley and the broad green hills that bordered it.
We didn’t hike for long before we found wedgeleaf ceanothus (Ceanothus cuneatus) covering entire hillsides with white blooms.
An hour and a half later, we got to our first summit of the day: 3,849-foot Mount Diablo. There were no cars on the summit parking lot yet, only some cyclists and a trail runner. The summit was cold and windy and Elizabeth and I took shelter behind the walls of the visitor center for a snack.
The flowers had been just OK so far, but as we descended onto the north side of Mount Diablo on the North Peak Trail, they became great.
We found bright yellow Goldfields (Lasthenia sp.) all over the ground, and orange wallflowers (Erysimum capitatum), fiddlenecks (Amsinckia sp.), and California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) shooting up above them. Red larkspur (Delphinium nudicaule) grew from the rocks.
Our next stop was North Peak, a 3,557-foot summit northwest of Mount Diablo. The road to it was so steep, Elizabeth and I had trouble climbing it—I couldn’t believe it was used by wheeled vehicles. But the summit bristled with radio antennas, so they must make it up there. We enjoyed the views, then made our way back down. On the way I noticed that the road was lined with pink-blooming gypsum springbeauty (Claytonia gypsophiloides).
Our last stop was 2,369-foot Eagle Peak. I wanted to get there via the Bald Ridge and Eagle Peak trails, a route I first thought of on my direct hike up Mount Diablo a year ago. The Bald Ridge Trail was brushy, and we had to dodge poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum) and wade through clouds of bugs, but the views and wildflowers were excellent. There were beautiful bird’s eye gilia (Gilia tricolor ssp. diffusa), purple larkspur (Delphinium sp.), and lovely but inconspicuous checker lily (Fritillaria affinis). Indian warrior (Pedicularis densiflora) lurked in the shadows.
It was warm now and the tall chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum) on the trail to Eagle Peak blocked the wind, making us hot. Once on the summit, we stopped for snacks and a rest.
All that remained was the walk back to Juniper Campground. The best part of this was a huge patch of blooming white wedgeleaf and blueblossom (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus) ceanothus near Deer Flat Creek on Meridian Ridge Road.
Their flowers mottled the hillsides with blue and white and scented the air. We finished at 4, wrapping up our excellent hike in seven hours.
Related posts: