Sunday 5/7/06 - Mission Peak
I lived in Fremont for most of my life but never got around to hiking to the top of Mission Peak until now, when I live accross the bay from it. I guess I always took it for granted that it was there. It fell in to that category of being too close to home so I never took advantage of what it had to offer. Well, I finally did it... I hiked the thing. I am not one to do solo hiking really but I woke up Sunday morning expecting to go on my first solo expedition. Louis completely surprised me and said that he was going with me.
We got off to a late start because I was having a hard time waking up. We were at the trailhead at 9:30 which means that it was already pretty warm. It trips me out now to go to Fremont. I lived there for 20 or so years and it is so different and so the same from what I remember. It was a lovely day. Nice and sunny. I knew that it was going to get really warm though. The trail up Mission Peak that I chose was a wide fire road with pretty much no tree coverage. It was being traveled that day like it was a freeway. I don't think I have seen quite so many people on a trail... Since my goal was the top and I am in better shape than Louis is at the moment, I went on ahead at my own pace. An hour and forty minutes, around 2k feet, and three miles later I was at the top. I have to say that it didn't really look anything like I was expecting it to, although I couldn't really tell you what I was expecting. The view was great from up there, that was expected. I wish it had been a bit clearer. The hike down was hard on the knees due to the fact that the fire road was covered with loose gravel - very slippery. It was a good hike though, I burned through 1400 calories and had plenty of water to spare. I also wasn't sore at all from the excursion.Saturday 5/13/06 - Mt Diablo
So now I have done a solo hike. It is oddly liberating, but not a habit I want to start. I have already gotten a lot of scolding from various people for going out there by myself and I am sure I haven't heard the last of it. The goal for the day was the peak of Mt Diablo standing roughly around 3,800 feet. I didn't make it but I did manage to pull off a hike that was a little over 12 miles total with around 2,500 ft of elevation gain. My GPS receiver said that my total ascent in feet was around 6,000 feet... I am not sure if I believe that but it does take in to account all of the ups and downs that the trail has so maybe I really did go up that much.
I started out from the Mitchell Canyon gate of Mt Diablo State park. Again this trail is pretty much a fire road. That was just fine by me as there was quite a bit of mountain bike traffic and some hikers as well. It made me feel much better that there were people about and I wasn't hiking out in the boonies by myself. Cue the horror movie music... The picture to the left is from the top of Mitchell Canyon. The first two miles of the hike were pretty flat along a very pretty creek. Just like I was told, there were a lot of bird watchers along the first part of the trail. After two miles though the trail started a pretty steep climb. By mile three I was ready to turn around. I might be over training a bit right now and Friday night I had done my local training loop of 4 miles which was fine but I did it less than 12 hours before I started this hike. I was TIRED by mile three and it sucked that the trail just kept going up. I am not sure what exaclty kept me going. This sort of odd need to keep going up until I couldn't go up any more I guess. I am not sure I like that feeling. It is almost like an addiction or something. I experienced the same thing doing Mission Peak too only that hike was half as long as this one was going to be. The next two miles were spent going up and up. People on this trail were much nicer than the people on the Mission Peak trail. When you said hi, people actually returned the salutation. I even stopped to chit chat with a woman who decided to get back in to mountain biking. Boy did she pick the wrong trail to go down! I didn't envy her trek back to the parking lot, which for her was up the way she came down.
The bad thing, or the good, depending on your perspective, with hiking Mt Diablo, is that there is a road that goes to the top of it. That means that you can really cheat to get to the top. Mitchell Canyon trail basically ends up at a campground that is most of the way to the summit of the mountain. From there you can catch the Juniper trail to get to the top. My mistake is that I missed the proper section of the Juniper trail. I ended up going the way that went down and then met up with the Summit trail. It sounds like it would be the proper way to go but what it really does is take you a mile out of your way all the while loosing precious elevation that you have already gained just to dump you at the summit trail which is 1.6 miles long that goes back up. The proper Juniper trail would have just taken me up toward the summit directly. I was getting really ticked off that I was losing elevation so when I did get to the summit trail I turned around. I was really only supposed to do a 12 mile hike according to my training schedule and I was already at 6 miles with all of that left to get back to the car.The good thing that came out of it was that I met two really nice people along that trail. They had parked at the campground and I guess were on the way to the summit but took a couple of wrong turns. They had a hard time finding the section of the Juniper trail that went up too. While we were walking they entertained me with their own Half Dome stories (one included a hiker that they had been leapfrogging with who decided he was hot and took a dip in the river sans clothing not really caring who was around). We said farewell when we returned to the campground and I started my descent down Mitchell Canyon. It was very slow going as I had somehow tweeked my knee. I had 3 miles of steep downhill followed by two more miles to get to my car - it was going to be a long walk. I made it in one piece though. Boy was it hot when I got down to my car. I was thankful for my air conditioning. The drive home took about an hour and a half that was not kind on my knee. It was quite painful having to drive a manual transmission car through bumper to bumper bridge traffic while my knee was aching. Thank goodness I included Alieve and Advil in my daypack. I burned 5,500 calories yesterday and was starving by the time I got home. The day was topped off with a BBQ beef sandwich, very good mac & cheese, and a live jazz band at one of our local San Carlos restaurants. I am really proud of myself for being able to complete that hike all by myself. What is better is that not once did I regret my decision to do that solo hike.
My plan for next Saturday, assuming my knee is better is to attempt to climb Eagle Peak in Yosemite. 12 miles, over 100 switchbacks, more than 3500 ft of elevation gain, hopefully one mega WOW view of a rockin' waterfall, and one friend crazy enough to agree to go with me (I guess when you have known a person for over 18 years they get used to your whims).
Wish me luck!
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