Climbing Mount Diablo, and planting a seed
Clayton, United States
12.10.2002 - 13.10.2002
22 °C
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Work Trips 1997 - 2004
on GregW's travel map.
Mount Diablo State Park was just north of my apartment in Pleasanton, California. Mount Diablo rises 3,849 feet from close to sea level, just east of the San Francisco Bay.
I drove up on Sunday to hike up to the summit. I drove up to one of the parking lots on the slope of the mountain, probably around 2,000 feet and set out on foot. The climb took about 2 hours for me to reach the top. The sun was beating down, and the sweat was pouring off me in buckets. But I dragged my ass to the top of the mountain.
The view from the top was amazing. To the west was the Golden Gate Bridge and out into the Pacific, and to the east the central valley and far away the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
The central valley is quite flat, and as Mount Diablo stands alone, the view is extensive. A plaque at the peak stated that one can see 35 of California's 58 counties, and from which it is possible to view the second greatest surface area seen from any peak in the world, exceeded only by Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.
A seed was planted that day about Kilimanjaro. A few months later a travel show on TV was talking about Kilimanjaro, and how (along with being the highest peak in Africa) it was the highest mountain in the world that a person could climb with no special climbing skills or training required. Kilimanjaro is the highest "walkable" mountain in the world. "Some day," I thought to myself, "I will climb Mount Kilimanjaro."
...some day, hopefully.
