Well… no day hikes in August 2020. Read my JMT reports if you want to know why. 🙂

The first weekend after I got back from hiking the JMT, I didn’t hike or bike. I barely moved around my home. 🙂

Labor day weekend… I managed to start doing my morning bike rides (10, 12, and 16 miles).

But because the SF Bay Area was experiencing scorching heat (100 degrees+ where I live) that weekend, hiking wasn’t going to happen even if I wanted to do a hike. I sort of wanted to, but I have to admit it would have been hard to motivate my legs even if the temperature was lower.

On the third weekend after I got back… I did a hike! Unfortunately, the smoke in the air caused it to be a fairly short hike (six and a half miles) at Mt Diablo.

Mostly it was a quick hike up to Twin Peaks and then a short loop around the area to get some trails off my list so I can hike every Mt Diablo trail this year.

It would have been great if I could have done a longer hike, but the smoke in the air made that unattractive.

On the forth weekend, I did a real hike.

I decided to do a long hike from Diablo Foothills, up to the Castle Rock area, and then down to Stage Road. This would allow me to cover some trails I hadn’t hiked this year. In fact, it’s been a few years since I did some these trails.

11.5 miles in 6 hours.

So a little closer to my goal of hiking EVERY trail at Mt Diablo State Park this year. I think I can finish in 4-5 day hikes. With three months left in the year, it should be easy to achieve this goal.

On the last weekend of September, I took care of a large area of the east part of Mt Diablo State Park.

Black Sage Road, Sycamore Creek Road, Camp Force Overlook, and down Curry Canyon to clear Grizzly Bear Rd off the list of trails to hike this year. If I had known earlier in the year that I was going to do all the trails in one calendar yerar, I could have taken care of this one much earlier without having to do the long hike down Curry Canyon again.

Then it was down and around to Black Hawk Ridge before going down Black Creek Road. 11.5 miles in 7 hours.

There was a small section (less than a half mile) down on Old Finley Road that I wanted to take care of too, but it would require a two and a half mile round trip to get to the small section. With the high heat in the Bay Area and being pretty tired after the main hike, I decided to do that some other day. If I had only taken care of it earlier in the year, I would be done with the east side altogether.

Ah well, it’ll be a quick hike to do someday soon.

2-3 day hikes left to finish all the trails at Mt Diablo State Park this year!