Elizabeth and I got to the trailhead at the Juniper Campground at [...]]]> 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.

We got out, crossed the road, and hiked up a minor hill for a view. It was about 50 degrees and the sky above [...]]]> Elizabeth and I pulled into Mount Tamalpais‘s Rock Spring trailhead at 9 in the morning. There were no other cars there yet, just cyclists taking breaks after early morning rides up the mountain.

We got out, crossed the road, and hiked up a minor hill for a view. It was about 50 degrees and the sky above us was perfectly clear. The mountainsides were covered in bright grass; the valleys brimmed with dark conifers. An uneven fog filled the air below us, thinning to a haze in places, piling into clouds in others. It covered the Pacific Ocean to the west and San Francisco to the south. We saw only the sky, the fog, and the silhouettes of mountains.

We turned around and started our hike. Our goal was Cataract Falls, reputedly the most impressive in the Bay Area. We’d never been there, but I thought they might be flowing well after all the recent rains. Most people don’t hike to the falls from Rock Spring. Sure, we could have driven up to within a mile of the falls, which is what most visitors do, but I wanted to make a dayhike out of our visit. We’d make a loop, descending 1,300 feet to the Alpine Lake reservoir and climbing past the falls on the way back.

We left the sunny meadow near the parking lot and entered a shady forest of lichen-covered Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). A small fern-lined creek trickled by the trail. It was so chilly under the shade of the trees that we put on our jackets and gloves.

A few minutes later, we left the forest for the chaparral. The rocky ground was still wet from yesterday’s rain and sent me sliding a few times. The plants around us were tall and diverse. Chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum) was most apparent. But there was also wedgeleaf ceanothus (Ceanothus cuneatus) and at least one kind of Arctostaphylos, hoary manzanita (Arctostaphylos canescens). I was delighted to find some Sargent’s cypress (Cupressus sargentii), a tree endemic to California that I rarely find on hikes.

We stopped for a break at Barth’s Retreat, a picnic area next to a stream. After the forests and chaparral we’d walked through, the place felt remote, so I was surprised to find picnic tables, a water pump, and a barbeque grill there. But as we left, we found a dirt road leading to the site, explaining the amenities.

We took the Kent Trail down the north side of Mount Tamalpais. The vegetation consisted of spindly trees and shrubs, but every so often we’d walk by an old Douglas-fir, its trunk a massive black column breaking through the brush to the sky above. Each change in aspect and elevation revealed new plant communities. We walked through a patch of manzanita so tall and thick that it formed a tunnel around the trail. We also found a nearly pure stand of giant chinquapin (Chrysolepis chrysophylla).

We hadn’t seen any other hikers for an hour. Then the trail grew faint and split. We could go left or right, but there was no sign of what either direction led to. My map didn’t help—it had plenty of intersections that could have been ours. Well. We needed to go downhill toward Alpine Lake, and with no other indication of the correct route, we took the trail that went downhill. If that didn’t work out, we could just come back and try the other one.

We could barely see the trail through the pine needles, leaves, and fallen branches. But we stuck to it, if only to see if the next intersection would give us a clue to where we were.

The trail wrapped around a marsh and disappeared into a patch of mud. But just beyond the marsh I spotted a trail sign: we’d just finished the aptly named Cross Country Boys Trail. I checked my map: the marsh we’d passed was High Marsh and we were right where we wanted to be.

Back on the Kent Trail, we descended another 800 feet to Alpine Lake. The trees became taller and the forest became cool and shady. Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) showed up. Wild-sounding calls of frogs, acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus), California quails (Callipepla californica), and northern flickers (Colaptes auratus) echoed through the forest.

Once at Alpine Lake, we hiked through a forest of redwood and Douglas-fir to Cataract Falls. Blooming next to the trail were Indian warrior (Pedicularis densiflora),  hound’s tongue (Cynoglossum grande), and fetid adder’s tongue (Scoliopus bigelovii).

Whereas we’d seen just two or three hikers for the last four hours, we now entered a stream composed of couples, families, dogs, kids, babies, dress shoes, denim pants, cotton shirts, and video cameras. Everyone had come to see the falls.

One look at Cataract Falls and we understood why everyone had come. They were spectacular. After a good soaking rain yesterday they were flowing at their peak, filling the air with mist as they tumbled out of the forest, splashed over boulders, and dropped down ledges before finally plunging into a pool below the trail. A local who’d been coming here for years said they were at the best he’d ever seen.

We took our obligatory photos then hiked uphill. The crowds thinned with each wooden staircase we climbed. By the time we got to Laurel Dell, there was only a handful of people sitting at its wooden picnic tables. We stopped for snacks, then walked the last leg of our hike to our car.

We got back to the parking lot at 5 and were stunned to see it entirely filled. So much had changed since the morning: the air was warm, the fog was gone, and the road was busy with cars and bicycles. We were glad we had started early.

To be honest, I might not have visited Windy Hill if not for this trip. It’s a one-hour drive to get there, and it’s small—at 1,312 [...]]]> Today was both our first time hiking with the Loma Prieta Sierra Club’s Day Hiking Section and our first visit to Windy Hill Open Space Preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

To be honest, I might not have visited Windy Hill if not for this trip. It’s a one-hour drive to get there, and it’s small—at 1,312 acres, it isn’t much larger than Central Park in New York City. But now I know that it would have been a mistake. It’s a great park. And the surrounding hills and open space make it feel much larger than it really is.

We got to the preserve parking lot at 8:40, 10 minutes after the hike’s scheduled start. A group was leaving as we parked. Was that the Loma Prieta Sierra Club? We tossed our backpacks on and hurried up the trail, slowly gaining on them. Some of the group members looked back at us suspiciously. Meanwhile, I was scanning the backs of heads to see if I recognized anyone.

When the group stopped at an intersection a few minutes into the hike, Elizabeth and I caught up with them. We introduced ourselves. I was happy to see some familiar faces: Debbie, Chris, Rosemary, and Barry from a Peak Climbing Section trip up Mount Silliman in 2008 were there. So was Sassan, from last year’s trip up University Peak.

Elizabeth and I started walking again, this time as part of the group. We passed old, majestic valley oaks (Quercus lobata), heard bird song from every branch and bush, and watched the low morning clouds burn off. I was becoming impressed with little Windy Hill Open Space Preserve.

We climbed up through the old, deep forest of Hamms Gulch. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the misty air from the tops of giant trees. The furrowed trunks of the Douglas-firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) were covered in deep green feather moss on one side and lichen the color of the Statue of Liberty on the other. Below the Douglas-firs were coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia), much shorter trees with curving gray trunks and twisted, tangled branches draped with lichen.

The lush understory, filled with ferns, grasses, and flowers, brought as much joy as the trees. Little white and pink milkmaids (Cardamine californica) bloomed everywhere. Hound’s tongue (Cynoglossum grande), with clusters of blue and white flowers on foot-tall stalks, poked out above everything else. We even saw some blooming western leatherwood (Dirca occidentalis), a Bay Area endemic.

At the top of the gulch, we turned left on the Bay Area Ridge Trail and followed it along Skyline Boulevard and into Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve. We were on top of the Santa Cruz Mountains, a landscape of meadows dotted with big oaks and coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis). We stopped for lunch on a wooden platform overlooking hills that rolled off toward the Pacific Ocean covered in a patchwork of emerald grass and dark redwood forests.

I checked my altimeter. We’d climbed 1,800 feet from our car to the crest of the Santa Cruz Mountains, traveling through oak woodlands, Douglas-fir forest, and chaparral onto a mountaintop meadow with a beautiful view. Not a bad hike!

From the overlook, we turned back on the Bay Area Ridge Trail and followed it north to Windy Hill, the peak for which the preserve is named. Windy Hill was actually two small, grassy bumps next to Skyline Boulevard. I knew I wouldn’t be happy tagging only the highest, so I hiked up both of them.

From the higher summit, I had a clear view to the east. We weren’t far from Stanford’s campus, and its Hoover Tower was conspicuous. Farther away were the hangars at Moffett Field. Below, a coyote (Canis latrans) sat on the hillside, watching us go by.

We took the Spring Ridge Trail back to our cars. It’s really just an easy dirt road, and it made a pleasant finish to our hike. A white-tailed kite (Elanus leucurus) hovered over the grasslands, looking for dinner. To our south was Black Mountain, covered in dark groves of Douglas-fir.

We finished at 4:30 and had drinks and snacks that the leaders had brought for everyone.