• Start/End: 37.2032, -122.3375
• Route: Six Bridges Trail, Olmo Fire Road, Goat Hill Trail, Gazo’s Trail, Olmo Fire Road, Indian Trail, Canyon Trail, Jackson Flats Trail, Mill Ox Trail
• Distance: about 10 miles
• Elevation Gain: 1,700 feet
• Highlights: Ridge-top views, old-growth redwood and Douglas-fir

Elizabeth and I picked up our friend Brendan in the Outer Richmond and drove south along the coast on Highway 1. We got to the park past noon, so we had a quick lunch before starting. We ate under the shade of a bigleaf maple with a pair of Stellar’s jays in it who watched for us to finish so they could pick though whatever we happened to drop. Once on the Six Bridges Trail we followed Little Butano Creek, which was lined with lush vegetation, many of whose members were unknown to me. We hiked uphill through a second-growth forest of Douglas-fir, redwood, sword fern, and sorrel, until we reached the park road. I checked my hand-drawn map to figure out where we were, and then we took the road south toward Olmo Fire Road.

We crossed Olmo Fire Road to Gazo’s Trail, a nice single-track through a ridge of Douglas-fir and tanoak. Douglas irises, white and purple flowers so outrageous I thought they were some kind of garden escapee when I first saw them, grew throughout the understory. Through gaps in the forest we could see madrones with their thick, glossy leaves and peeling burgundy bark rising out of the shrubbery, silhouetted against endless blue ridges. Puffy white clouds drifted over the mountains, their diffuse outlines making the sky look as if it had been drawn in pastels. Beyond them the ocean’s horizon disappeared in the haze.

Back on Olmo Fire Road, we took it past the intersection with the Doe Trail, spotting some large redwoods to our south. But they soon gave way to manzanita bushes and scrubby knobcone pine as the road went over Santa Margarita sandstone. We were out in the sun now, and the low vegetation offered views all around us: the Pacific Ocean, the thickly forested canyon we’d just left, and nearby hills with sandy roads just like ours, white streaks through a dark forest.

We were getting hot from the road’s glare, so we were glad to return to the shade of an ancient forest by taking the Indian Trail, which led toward the headwaters of Little Butano Creek. Beneath the Douglas-firs were twisted little oaks that were absolutely covered in Usnea lichen that hung from their branches like pale-green hair, taking advantage of the constant supply of clean, moist air funneled up the canyon from the ocean.

The trail crossed Little Butano Creek, where we admired some impressive redwoods and Douglas-fir before turning onto the Canyon Trail. We contoured along the canyon, curving out for hillsides and in for gullies. The hillsides, exposed to more wind and sun, were covered in chaparral of chamise, manzanita, bush poppy, and bush monkeyflower. The manzanitas (whose name means ‘little apple’ in Spanish) had fruits that indeed looked like tiny Fuji apples. A few knobcone pines grew out of the shrubs and little orange Allen’s hummingbirds flew around emitting high-pitched buzzes, perhaps drawn by the monkeyflowers whose orange flowers looked well-suited to their bills. Usnea lichen encrusted the trunks and branches here, too. On the other hand, when the trail curved in toward gullies, they were shady and cool, generally more hospitable to plant life. As we approached their streambeds, dry in this season, the vegetation became more dense and the trees became taller, including madrone, tanoak, and Douglas-fir.

At length we turned into a more substantial gully, one filled with a deep redwood forest, and the change in landscape was dramatic. The light under the foliage was dim and blue-green, as if we had gone underwater; we had to let our eyes adjust. The air was cool. Elizabeth, far ahead of me, looked incongruously small among the giant trees. Yellow banana slugs, several inches long, crossed the trail and climbed the enormous tree trunks.

Leaving the canyon, we came out of the redwoods and were back in the dappled shade of Douglas-fir and tanoak. But when I reached for the map in my pocket, it was gone. It must have fallen out somewhere on the trail, probably into a mess of poison oak. I told Elizabeth and Brendan to wait for me while I went to look for it. I jogged back along the trail and scanned the hillsides. What if I couldn’t find it? Could we still get back? How much did I remember from sketching it the night before? Would it take more energy to find the map than it would to find our way back to the car without it? I stopped running and looked down the canyon. The puffy clouds were still blowing in with the ocean breeze and the hummingbirds were still buzzing through the chaparral. I knew there were several trails to the bottom of the canyon and that as long as we kept going west and downhill, we’d eventually hit the park road. There, we could easily find our way to the car. I jogged back and apologized to Elizabeth and Brendan for losing the map and for not being able to find it. But, I explained and hoped, we’d probably be OK without it.

A chilly breeze came in from the ocean and the shade of the redwoods slowly deepened. It was about 5 in the afternoon and by my estimate we had something like 2 miles to go. We made it to the intersection with Jackson Flat Trail, which I knew we had to take, but we had to choose whether to go left or right. The trail to the left went toward the canyon bottom, ever so slightly downhill, so we went that way. I was concerned about the dwindling daylight and our route, but I still marveled at the huge redwoods near the trail. So did Brendan and Elizabeth, who were blissfully unconcerned that we were walking through unfamiliar woods near sunset without a map.

The understory grew denser as we descended, but now it was filling in with plants I remembered from the creek, from when we first started hiking. By the time we got to the Mill Ox Trail, I knew we were on the right track and that we’d be back within an hour. We’d been walking for a while, so now we took a well-deserved break. We sat down on a redwood root and Elizabeth shared a bag of dark-chocolate covered almonds from Trader Joe’s with us. Everyone loved them and we finished them all before we got on our way.

We walked downhill and we were back at Little Butano Creek in no time. We hopped over the creek and got back on the park road. We didn’t know which way to go, but since the forest was taller here than where we started and we knew it thinned toward the ocean, we went west. We were right again – in a few minutes we were back at the car. It was 6:20 and I was amazed that, at first without a proper map and later with no map at all, we’d completed the exact route I’d planned the night before. We got in the car and stopped for dinner at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company. We had burgers and beer while the sun set over the ocean outside the windows. I hadn’t been there before but I’ll remember to stop there the next time I explore the Santa Cruz Mountains.

After I spent a weekend hiking in Pinnacles National Monument, Elizabeth and I explored Mount Diablo each week for the next month, from late March through April, during the peak of the wildflower season. We enjoyed spectacular weather with clear skies and warm temperatures every weekend, typical of the early dry season. And we saw wildflowers come and go, slowly moving uphill as the days warmed.  The entire mountain was abloom.

On March 28, we spent the morning in Mitchell Canyon, walking up Mitchell Canyon Road to Deer Flat and back. This was on the north side of the mountain, where the grasslands and savannas were radiantly green with a few orange poppies and yellow mustard swaying in the breeze. Above the fields hung scattered valley oaks budding with light green leaves. As we started up the dirt road from the visitor center, the grass was tall and luxuriant with little yellow buttercups poking out of it at knee-height.

The trailside was filled with blue dicks, orange fiddlenecks, and blue lupines. We also saw the occasional purple Western larkspur and violet Henderson’s shooting stars on red stems. On the exposed rocks along the trail we saw red larkspur and in the shade of oaks and bay we saw some hound’s tongue. We were delighted to spot our first few Mount Diablo fairy lanterns, but this display was paltry compared to the one we’d see a few weeks later.

I was excited to find some checker lilies growing in the grass near the top of the canyon, their green stems and leaves curving gracefully and their flowers nodding toward the ground. But the flowers are mottled purple and green from above which, combined with their grass-like stems and leaves, makes the plants inconspicuous. You have to look for them to find them, and once you do find them, you have to get close to appreciate them.  Get down on your knees and have a look up to see their bold yellow pistils and stamens and alien purple and yellow petals.

On April 4, we joined some friends to hike to the summit of Mount Diablo, again on the north side of the mountain. In the grasslands and savannas we saw the same flowers as the week before: buttercups, filaree, mustard, fiddlenecks, blue dicks, and lupines. As we climbed out of Back Creek Canyon and into the chaparral we saw shrubs like ceanothus and blue witch blooming, as well as manroot, a vine, and paintbrush, Indian warrior, and Zigadene lily. The grassy patches on the Bald Ridge Trail were filled with wildflowers. Noteworthy were the baby blue eyes, California poppy, western wallflower, and purple owl’s clover. The flowers continued on the North Peak Trail, to the very top of the mountain.

I particularly enjoyed the bird’s eye gilia on the Bald Ridge Trail, where they completely carpeted some of the balds. They grow only in California, restricted to the Coast Ranges, the San Joaquin Valley, and the Sierra Nevada foothills. They are little flowers, each one about the size of a fingernail, and they might go unnoticed but for their numbers. A closer look reveals five dramatic petals whose faint lilac edges fade to white at their bases. In the center of each flower, five light blue stamens curve from a dark purple ring above its yellow throat.

On April 12, we explored the south side of the mountain, starting on Wall Point Road from Macedo Ranch. Blue-eyed grass, Ithuriel’s spear, and purple owl’s clover were blooming and the grass, although mostly green, was beginning to turn yellow. On the brief but enchanting Sunset Trail we saw a few Mount Diablo fairy lanterns on an east-facing hillside. Coming out of Pine Canyon, at the intersection of Little Pine Creek and Burma roads was a weedy patch thick with wild radish and mustard and filled with singing red-winged blackbirds. Later, huffing up Burma Road, Elizabeth and I were startled by the sound of a rattlesnake on the side of the trail, but we easily avoided it.

On April 19, we returned to Mitchell Canyon, where we had started our wildflower exploration three weeks earlier. We didn’t have much time, so we we made a short loop on the Globe Lily Trail. I’d passed by this trail several times without knowing it, as there are no signs for it on Mitchell Canyon Road. Instead you have to take either the Black Point or Red Road trails a short distance to get to it. But seeking it out is well worth the effort, for it’s a short and sweet single-track through woodlands, chaparral, and grasslands with excellent views of Mitchell Canyon and the hills around it.

We turned on to the Globe Lily Trail and rose into the hillside chaparral, where the yerba santa was starting to bloom with clusters of white trumpet-shaped flowers. Underneath the yerba santa was the fascinating but terribly named clustered broomrape. It was a little yellow plant, completely yellow. It has no chlorophyll but instead takes water and nutrients from the roots of a host plant. It’s a parasite.

The Globe Lily Trail gets its name from the Mount Diablo fairy lantern, which is also known as the Mount Diablo globe lily. We’d only seen a few of them before, but we hit the trail at just the right time and saw hundreds on this day’s’ loop. Their abundance was made all the more remarkable by the fact that Mount Diablo and its surrounding hills are the only place on earth where they grow at all. They belong to the fairy lantern clade of the attractive genus Calochortus. There are five species of fairy lantern in California, all of them endemic, and all of them with restricted ranges. Their common names – fairy lanterns, globe tulips, satin bells – hint at their beauty and form.

Back on Mitchell Canyon Road, the buttercups, blue dicks, and fiddlenecks from our first trip had started to fade and we only saw a few of them, but they had been replaced by bush lupine and Chinese houses. Chinese houses look superficially like lupine, their flowers forming tiered rings around the stem, and each flower splitting into vertical white petals on top and horizontal purple petals on the bottom. We saw occasional woodland stars, flowers I’d seen before but failed to identify. By the time we left, the sun was blazing over the fields and the temperatures were rising toward the 90s, a preview of the months to come.