Rock City, just above Live Oak Campground, at sunset.
trip profile:
bart + bike
sf –> Mt. Diablo (biking (ascending, descending), hiking, camping, etc.)
easy overnight trip
starter kit:
Bart sf –> Walnut Creek
Bike
Walnut Creek –> mt. Diablo
Description:
It’s summer in sf and it’s foggy and cold (relatively speaking) — this trip is great for an easy night or two away from the city’s fog. There is a varying degree of climbing involved for this trip – The Live Oak campground is located at 1450 ft, the Junction campground is located at 2200 ft, and the Juniper campground, which is at 3000 ft, is approximately two miles from the summit. The view from the top is pretty spectacular and definitely worth the climb (plus the descent is sweet!). If you want to do minimal climbing on the bike, it is possible to take advantage of the network of trails and hike to the summit from the live Oak Campground.
Transit:
Hop on BART and link up with the Pittsburg-Baypoint line, disembark (approx. 40 minutes from SF bart stops) at the Walnut Creek station. Bike the easy 10 miles to the base of Mt. Diablo (along either Danville Blvd. or the Iron Horse trail) and begin climbing south gate road. (for zoomable map of the exact route, click here).
side trips:
Close to the live oak Campground is ‘rock city’ where there are some really amazing wind caves and rock formations.
Stop by the Rivendell bike shop in Walnut Creek, just a few blocks from the Walnut Creek BART station
particulars:
It gets pretty hot here during the summer — if attempting to do a lot of the climbing it is better to do it early in the morning or later in the evening,
Campground reservations: http://www.mdia.org/spcamp.htm
A friend and I did this trip starting last Thursday, for 3 nights of camping. It was really fun.
Call the park before you go. They were working on the south gate road when we got there, and they were directing traffic all the way around Mt. Diablo. We cheated and walked our bikes along trails until we got past the roadwork, but it would have been better had we known the road was closed. Also, a worker warned us there was a cop writing tickets for people who got on the road but we never saw him.
Thursday night was wonderful because the campground was almost deserted. On Friday we hiked up from Juniper campground to the top and saw the little museum there, and on Saturday we biked down to Rock City and did the Devil’s Slide trail, which was nice because it was along a riverbed and it had a fair amount of shady trees.
By: Leif on September 22, 2008
at 3:51 pm