To finish off the last of the Mt Diablo State Park trails that I had yet to hike in 2020, I drove to the Devil’s Elbow right below the main summit. Trying to do it from Regency Gate or by going over Mt Olympia and North Peak would add a lot of time and climbing that I wanted to avoid since I knew just the trails I had to hike were going to be challenging enough.

Devil’s Elbow was the closest trailhead to the remaining trails. I made my way over on North Peak Trail to where it crosses the target for the day: Old Prospectors Gap Road

First, I headed south down a mostly gentle slope for about one and a quarter miles. Then I hit the gate marking the end of the state park.

That meant that I had to turn around and then climb up the 975 feet back to the junction that I started from. Needless to say, that was not a fun re-climb. But it was the only way to take care of that part of the trail.

After taking a brief break there, I then had to descend down the Old Prospectors Gap Road to the north. This was NOT a gentle descent. Maybe that’s why I left this for last. It’s probably the steepest trail section in the park (except for a small section of the North Peak Trail right before you reach North Peak, but that was short this part of the road had a LOT of steep sections).

Even going down you had to take it slow and be careful not to slip on the loose gravel.

I safely made it down to Middle Trail, the last half of trail I needed to hike to finish all the trails this year. Going down, it wasn’t long before I reached the junction with Falls Trail (which I had cleared the previous weekend).

And… GOAL!!!

I had finished hiking all the trails inside MT Diablo State Park in the first 11 months of 2020!

And technically, I did them all in 10 months since I didn’t hike at Mt Diablo in August… I was kind of busy hiking the entire JMT.

While it felt great to achieve this goal, the final trail wasn’t particularity noteworthy. Maybe I should have saved a special summit or special destination for the last trail, but then I didn’t really decide on this goal to finish all the trails this year until June when I finished all the trails that I had hiked over the past 7-8 years.

I patted myself on the back and sat down and had a Diet Coke and snack in celebration.

Then I had to get back to my Jeep. The problem was it was a 1,900 foot climb to get back there. After the nearly 1,000 foot climb up the other side that was going to be quite the challenge.

I had considered going over to Dear Flat and going up via Juniper Trail, but decided against that due to the extra mileage that would require. The change of scenery wasn’t worth it at that point.

I came pretty close to just deciding to continue downward and exit at Regency Gate. From there I could take an Uber back to my Jeep. It would be a long descent, but it was all downhill. It would also cost a good chunk of change for the ride and then another $10 entry fee on top of that.

In the end, I decided to return to my Jeep using my own two feet. My feet were not amused. 🙂

The steep sections were a challenge, but didn’t seem as bad as I recalled. But then it’s been many years since I’d been on this trail and I am definitely in better shape now than I was then.

Reaching the junction with North Peak Trail, again I headed back towards Devil’s Elbow and enjoyed another Diet Coke there to celebrate.

After a little rest in my Jeep, I could have driven home and watched the Packers game.

But…

The main summit was only a half mile and 400 feet above me. What the hell…

So after complaining about all the elevation I had to climb on Old Prospectors Gap Road, I did some more climbing and enjoyed the views from the summit. I could even see the fresh snow covering the top of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east that had been deposited by the storms that rolled through on Friday and early Saturday.

So, 5.5 miles to finish the trails with a 975 foot climb. Then 2.8 miles and 1,900 feet to climb to get back to my Jeep. Add 400 feet and 1 mile for the quick jaunt up to the main summit, and we get 9.3 miles and 3,275 feet climbed. It was pretty much the same as climbing the entire mountain on the Summit Trail, just shorter… and steeper.

In addition to putting a nice ending on the day by going up to the summit, I also went up there because I wanted to take some more pictures with my new iPhone 12 Pro Max. I wanted to see how the triple cameras worked in the real world and they seemed to work great. I had dual cameras in my old iPhone 7 Plus and kind of missed them in my iPhone XR, so it was nice to have a lot of options when taking pictures. I’ve never been a fan of digital zoom, since it always reduces quality.

So I did end up taking a lot more pictures that normal for a simple weekend day hike.

But it was a great day and a major challenge completed… now where should I hike next week?