With the COVID-19 stay at home orders getting tighter and the weather getting better, I’ve been able to do a 7-8 mile bike ride every morning before the local bike trails get too crowded. I also try to get a 2-4 mile walk in during the afternoons, but I have started to use less traveled trails and city sidewalks. The Contra Costa Canal Trail is close to my home, but certain sections get crowded in the afternoons, so I’ve adjusted my walks to take advantage of side streets that are not that busy.

I still have to do some kind of major hike on the weekends to keep in shape and keep my sanity.

I started by going to the far eastern side of Mt Diablo State Park. Usually very quiet and the road to it narrows to a single lane road along the way to help discourage traffic and visitors.

It’s adjacent to the Morgan Territory Regional Preserve. It doesn’t have any direct trails to the summit and there is only one long trail to get from this part of the park to the western side that is more well known and visited by more people. But in the current situation, having something out of the way is just what I needed.

So I headed out early and started from the Morgan Territory Road around dawn to beat the crowds. Some nice rolling hills and great views of the area and the main summit. Even got some nice sunrise pictures.

I only saw one person on a bike all day, although I did hear a couple other people talking on a trail hidden by trees at one point. When my day was done, I returned to my Jeep and saw 5 or 6 cars parked along the road nearby. There are enough trails in this area that we must have always missed one another.

So, a good day’s hike that kept me away from other people.

As the weather was getting better, the stay at home rules were tightening. They didn’t want you driving to parks outside your neighborhood. The closest part of Mt Diablo is only 4-5 miles away from my home, so is pretty much in my neighborhood.

But its still a long walk to just get to the park, so I decided to try taking my bike. A little easier and good exercise as well. One of my routes for my daily bike rides actually gets near the intersection for North Gate Road and the Diablo Foothills area, which is when I got the idea.

The biggest challenge was that most of my bike rides have been mostly over level trails and roads and the roads to these trailheads would require 300 to 500 feet of elevation change. Not a problem (anymore) for hiking, but it would be more than I had previously done on my bike.

To prove that I could make it to the North Gate, I diverted one of my morning rides to the North Gate. It wasn’t easy, but I made it and proved to myself that I could manage it.

So on the first nice Saturday in April, I headed out to North Gate and the Camel Rock Trailhead. A bit over 5 miles and close to 500 feet climbed. Not a easy bike ride for me, but I made it.

I had chosen this starting point since it was fairly close to the entry gate and there were several trails close by that I hadn’t hiked before and that would help me towards my goal of hiking the remaining trails at Mt Diablo this year. With the virus, that goal might be harder to accomplish, but at least with Mt Diablo close by it wasn’t that hard to get there.

After locking my bike to a fence railing, I set off along Camel Rock Trail. It mostly followed the ridge above the North Gate Road. Since there were no cars allowed in the park, I could have just hiked along the road instead but these unhiked trails weren’t going to hike themselves. 🙂

Then I hit Burma Road and remembered why I don’t take this route to the summit that often: It’s a very steep and drains my soul with each step. But I also knew it wasn’t that popular of a trail, so shouldn’t have many people on it. I only had to avoid 4 people on the way up to Mother’s Trail and then towards Juniper Campground.

This was where the morning’s drab overcast skies started to clear and show the beautiful blue sky and sun. Although it wasn’t that the skies were clearing, it was that I was now climbing above the low lying clouds. Always nice to be able to climb above the gray skies most people had to settle for. I even got some nice pictures of the sun casting some rays through the trees and mist.

From there it’s a fairly simple hike up Juniper Trail towards the Main Summit. I did pass a few more people on this trail, but never really had problems staying away from people until I got to the summit. A good deal of bicyclists and a handful of hikers were there. Since the shortest route to the Summit from outside the park was at least 6 miles, it was interesting to see how many people made the long trek. Normally you have a lot of cars and people to contend with.

So while it wasn’t as crowded as on a normal nice weekend, it was still a little hard to keep 6 feet away from other groups. Some of the people were still having problems with the idea of social distancing and why it was so important.

So after taking a picture of my feet on the pavement (the summit building was closed, so I couldn’t step on the actual summit that was inside the building like I normally do), I headed down without spending time to have some lunch at the summit as I normally do.

I decided to take the Summit Trail down to the Junction and had lunch there, hoping that there wouldn’t be too many people coming up. After that, I took advantage of no cars on the roads to walk down North Gate Road to Angel Kerley Trail to finish off another trail from my list.

I thought of going down Diablo Ranch Trail, but that would require a longer walk back and may have added 2 miles to that day’s hikes. Once the road reopens, it’ll be pretty easy to drive to it and take care of that trail.

That did mean that I ended up going down Burma Road again, but going down was a tiny bit easier (but not by much). From there, I crossed the road and did another new trail: Little Pine Creek Road. It ran along the other side of North Gate Road, so would put me right back at my bike.

The sky did finally clear up at the end, so got some nice blue skies at the end of my hike and return bike ride.

In all, the hike was 13 miles which was a fairly typical weekend hike for me. The Summit Trail is only 12 miles round trip, so this wasn’t really any different (except for that horrid Burma Road section).

Of course, instead of jumping in my Jeep to head home to get my pizza reward I had to take my bike back. Fortunately, it was mostly downhill, so the ride back was coasting downhill for the first couple of miles.

So 11 miles on my bike and 13 miles on my feet. 24 miles beat my previous record of 21 miles in one day (also at Mt Diablo). Not sure how to compare it though. While hiking 21 miles in a single day is a challenging day, riding a bike generally is more demanding on your legs than hiking the same distance.

In any case, it was a great day and a good way to keep me active. Although I did find that I put on about 4 extra pounds in the past month of being stuck at home. Have to work on avoiding the snacks, I guess.

Or the celebration pizzas, maybe. 🙂

Another nice weekend came and I headed to Mt Diablo again. It is the closest place that I can go and still get away from other people (at least 6 feet from other people, at least).

I decided to drive to the Old Finey Road trailhead and start from there. I’d never entered the park from there and it had some unexplored trails and with the park entrances shut down it was also one of only two easy ways to access the Black Hills area of the park.

While it was a long hike, I took the Oyster Point Trail towards the west. I even climbed up to Oyster Point itself, the first time I had taken that short detour while on this trail. Great view to start the day.

As the sun started peeking out of the clouds, I went over to the Black Hawk Ridge Road to cross another unexplored trail off my list. After climbing up the upper portion of this trail, I then went over to Balancing Rock on Knobcone Point Road. I had hiked this trail before, but it was a pleasant hike over a nice ridge.

From there, the official maps would have you turn around at a locked gate, but my GPS maps showed taking a right would lead me to a little trail called Jose’s World connecting two Utility Access Roads that would make this a nice loop. It was well worth it. It actually skirts around Knobcone Point itself, so I’m amazed it’s not an official trail. By the looks of it, it was well traveled by other people (although I only heard a couple people coming down behind me somewhere while I was there).

The loop put me right back in front of Black Hills Ridge Road trail, the lower part of it was last unhiked trail in this part of the park. While it would make this a long day, I decided to take the opportunity to cross it off the list. Having to come back for it later would be tricky. It also exits at a gated community called Black Hawk. Or at least I hoped it actually exited there based on my map and satellite images of the area. It would be a VERY long day if I had to backtrack up the hill to return to my Jeep. Since Mt Diablo is surrounded by private land, I have had some nasty surprises when trying to exit the park via a new trail.

Fortunately, the satellite images were correct and I exited via a gate that was not plastered with no trespassing signs or covered in barbed wire. It ended up being a 14.5 mile hike that day.

So far, at least.

I couldn’t cheat by taking a Uber back to my Jeep, since they wouldn’t be able to come through the gate. So, that meant that I had about 5 more miles of hiking to circle around back to where my Jeep was parked via sidewalks and along the edge of the roads.

So it was a very long 19.5 miles hiked that day. Not the longest day hike I’d ever taken, but after the 24 miles bike+hike the weekend before it was a pretty hard days hike.

But worth it. Anything to get out of my home for a day.

The last weekend of April arrived without signs of the stay at home orders being lifted or eased. The previous week I had bought a new bike to replace my old bike that I had bought on the cheap mostly for a 4 mile commute to and back from BART. With me riding my bike a lot more during the stay at home order, it felt like it was time to upgrade. I had been thinking about getting a new bike after a number of mechanical problems last year, so I probably would have bought a new one this year anyway.

So, Saturday morning I decided to just do a long 13 mile bike ride on the local trails to see how the new bike handled. So far so good. I didn’t feel like a long hike anyway.

On Sunday, I felt like getting out of the house, so headed towards Mt Diablo on my bike. So just before sunrise, I took a 4 mile bike ride to the Diablo Foothills staging area where I locked my bike to a fence and hit some new trails in the Diablo Foothills Regional Park.

Unfortunately, the first trail was a very steep climb up to Shell Ridge. I always love starting a day off with a steep climb… NOT.

But I did enjoy seeing the sunrise over Twin Peaks and Eagle Peak in the Diablo Range. I didn’t really plan that, but the angle and timing worked perfectly to give me some great views to the East.

Then I headed South winding up and down the Diablo Foothills. Not a lot of straight (or level) trails in this park, but it was a nice way to spend the morning.

Then I hit Mt Diablo State Park and had a chance to cross some more trails off my list of trails that I haven’t hiked at this large park. From the China Wall Trail to the Little Yosemite Trail, it was a even nicer way to spend the morning. I pretty much cleared the far west side of the park off my list of trails.

To return to my bike, I had to weave my way up through the Diablo Foothills again. Fortunately, there were a lot of crisscrossing trails in this park so I didn’t have to retrace my steps exactly.

As I neared the end, I considered a 1 mile loop to finish the day, but my feet decided to veto that. If it was mostly level trail, I might have done it. But having to re-climb about 300 feet did not appeal to me at that point. The fact that it was really getting hot as the afternoon sun arrived made this an easy call. That is one of the reasons I had gotten an early start: Beat the heat.

So, after a nice bike ride home that was mostly a downhill coast, I got to enjoy air conditioning for the rest of the afternoon. 🙂

12 miles of hiking, plus 8 miles on my new bike made this an exhausting, but rewarding, Sunday. Hopefully, I have the energy tomorrow morning to do my now daily bike rides. I’ve been managing to do 7 to 13 miles before too many people get on the local trails. The new bike may let me go even further during my morning rides.

So… a month of Mt Diablo hikes. Variety is the spice of life, but you have to be alive. Hopefully, I can get a little more variety in May.

Black Diamond Mines and Briones Regional Parks aren’t that far from me and are not as popular as some other parks, so maybe they’ll be my next hike.