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Tag: Mount Diablo State Park
Spring Issue 2009
Overnight on Mount Diablo
It has been over a year now since I took the plunge into car-free existence. The one-way, overnight backpack trip up and over Mount Diablo that I took last fall is one example of the kind of adventure I have been enjoying since I said good-bye to my car.
Fall Issue 2007
Presumed Extinct
Mention extinct species, and most people think of long-gone mastodons and saber-toothed tigers. But we know that some Bay Area species have disappeared in just the last 200 years. Or have they? Prompted by rediscoveries of lost species in Solano and Contra Costa counties, we decided to see what other missing flora and fauna might still be out there, awaiting a patient observer.
Botany, Wildlife
Field Guide to the Lost Species of the San Francisco Bay Area
A field guide to help Bay Area naturalists in their search for local, lost species that are presumed extinct.
Summer Issue 2006
Mount Diablo Resources
Organizations Several local nonprofit organizations work to protect open space on and around Mount Diablo and to inform the public about the natural and cultural history of the area. Save Mount Diablo Save Mount Diablo (SMD) was founded in 1971 … Read more
Summer Issue 2006
Mount Diablo: A Place for Raptors
Mount Diablo’s woodlands and canyons provide habitat for a fantastic variety of raptors, from kestrels to golden eagles (of which the northern Diablo Range hosts perhaps the world’s densest population). In the 1950s, however, the mountain lost one of its … Read more
Summer Issue 2006
Speak of the Devil
Mount Diablo is such a towering icon of our landscape that it is sometimes easy to forget how much complexity lies within its familiar outline. Indeed, the mountain holds many stories: from the drama of its birth under the ocean, to its (mis)naming by early American settlers, to last year’s rediscovery of the rare Mount Diablo buckwheat. Today the story continues, with the mountain and its surrounding ridges and canyons anchoring a bold vision for a broad swath of protected open space and wildlife corridors stretching from Concord to Livermore.
Summer Issue 2006
The Summit Loop Hike
This strenuous 5.3-mile hike circumambulates Mount Diablo’s summit, and traverses many of the mountain’s geological and botanical features. When I was there in early April 2006, the air was startlingly clear, and the snowy masses of the Sierra Nevada and … Read more
Summer Issue 2006
What a Grand Sight!
Beginning in 1860, botanist William H. Brewer accompanied state geologist Josiah Dwight Whitney on an expedition to perform “an accurate and complete Geological Survey” of California’s rocks, fossils, soils, minerals, and botanical and zoological specimens. Brewer’s accounts of his travels, … Read more
Summer Issue 2005
Rediscovery of Mount Diablo Buckwheat
It’s rare that a species gets taken off what seems an ever-growing list of extinctions, but that’s exactly what happened in May, when Berkeley-based botanist Michael Park found about a dozen Mount Diablo buckwheat flowers (Eriogonom truncatum) growing in a … Read more
