View of Mt Diablo from Concord, Walnut Creek, etc (San Mateo: house, live)

[jupiler]

I'm in the area for a few days and thinking of visiting one of the farther out BART-able East Bay towns for a few hours. Do any of them have good view of Mt Diablo or other scenery?

[ttocs99]

One of my ex bosses built a house in Pleasant Hill, and said he basically had a great view of Mt Diablo. I lived in Walnut Creek, and I was able to see Mt Diablo quite clearly. I belive Alamo might be the closest, but it's not BART-able.

[sav858]

You can see Mt Diablo from all over the area pretty much, obviously if you're higher up the better. If you're taking BART and don't have the ability to drive anywhere you can see it pretty clearly from the WC BART platform itself.

[ttocs99]

Originally Posted by sav858

You can see Mt Diablo from all over the area pretty much, obviously if you're higher up the better. If you're taking BART and don't have the ability to drive anywhere you can see it pretty clearly from the WC BART platform itself.

Come to think of it, that's pretty true !

[ketch89]

Take bart out to the Concord station, and it drops you just a few blocks from the tip of Lime Ridge open space preserve. You can hike from there to get great views of Mt. Diablo!

[ttocs99]

Man, I miss the Bay Area, such a beatiful place. New York is so flat (NYC really), no mountains or big hills unless you go upstate NY. I love Mt Diablo.

[pch1013]

Originally Posted by jupiler

I'm in the area for a few days and thinking of visiting one of the farther out BART-able East Bay towns for a few hours. Do any of them have good view of Mt Diablo or other scenery?

Yes, but not on days like this.

[HockeyMac18]

Mt. Diablo is one of those peaks that one can have great views of from many parts of the bay area. Because it's relatively isolated from nearby hills, and because it's so much taller than the closest hills, it tends to dominate the mountain scenery when one sees it. I actually have an awesome view of Mt. Diablo from my bedroom window in San Mateo (looking at it right now as I type this).

Anyway, it's actually very possible to take public transit to very close to Mt. Diablo, and in fact you can even hike into the park, or the top of the mountain/to its side peaks.

Take BART to the Concord BART station. From there take the county connection bus 10 (Route 10 Schedule and Map | The County Connection). The bus runs on an every 30 min schedule. You'll want to take it all of the way to the end.

Get off of the bus at Marsh Creek Road and El Molino Dr. Walk down El Molino Dr. about 0.3 miles until you see the Donnor Creek Fire road on your right side (it'll be directly across from Meredith Ct.). This fire road will take you directly into Mt. Diablo State park (from this point, you're just around 0.5 miles to the park border).

Once in the park, you can walk around the various trails at the bottom to get splendid views of the mountain. If you're up for a good hike, you can actually walk from the entrance to the top of all of Mt. Diablo's peaks, or you can hike up part way and walk around the fire roads that encircle the mountain.


My personal favorite hike from this point is as follows:

- Back Creek Trail to Meridian Ridge
- Meridian Ridge east to North Peak Rd. (alternative, you can take Bald Ridge Trail, which parallels the Meridian Ridge fire rd)
- North Peak Rd. to the top of North Peak (in my opinion, a better summit experience than the true summit itself, since there won't be obnoxious cars at the top).
- North Peak Rd. back to Meridian Ridge.
- North Peak Trail to Summit Trail
- Summit Trail to the summit (parking lot)
- From the summit, walk down to Juniper Trail
- Juniper trail to Deer Flat fire rd.
- Deer Flat Rd. back to Meridian Ridge fire road
- Merdian Ridge fire road back to Back Creek trail junction
- From here, if you're still feeling like adventure, you can take the trail to Eagle Peak, and then from Eagle peak, you can hike down the other side, where it will meet the Back Creek trail (very close to where you entered the park)
- If you just want to get down, you can take the Back Creek trail all of the way back out of the park to where you started

- Alternatively, instead of the back creek trail, Donner Creek Fire road parallels the back creek trail, so you can actually take that instead all of the way up to/down from the Meridian Ridge fire road. I find trails more pleasant than fire roads (just a personal preference), but the Donner Creek Fire road is an option.

Last time I did this hike, it came out to about 16 miles. It is certainly challenging, but for those who love challenging hikes or the feeling of accomplishment after a long day out on the trail, this is an awesome hike.

Of course, if you're not up for that, or don't have the time (you did say you only have a few hours), you can make it easier/quicker by only doing some of the peaks, or only going part up the mountain (for instance, you could just walk up to the top of Eagle Mountain for awesome views of the mountain and of the surrounding area, and it wouldn't take too long). Or If you just want an awesome view of the mountain, you just really need to walk to close to the entrance to the park (total walking from where the bus lets you off would be about ~1.5 mile).

Google maps has a great layout of all of these trails, if you want to take a look.

Park information: Mount Diablo SP
State park map and brochure (the trails I described start at the top of the map).

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by sav858

You can see Mt Diablo from all over the area pretty much, obviously if you're higher up the better. If you're taking BART and don't have the ability to drive anywhere you can see it pretty clearly from the WC BART platform itself.

This^

There's no escaping Mt Diablo in that area...muhahahaha

I love the view as one drives in drives in from Lafayette on 24 and the mountain rises so prominently--looks very majestic from that vantage point.

And when snow levels drop low enough, sometimes there's even a light dusting up there.

[ttocs99]

Originally Posted by 18Montclair

This^

There's no escaping Mt Diablo in that area...muhahahaha

I love the view as one drives in drives in from Lafayette on 24 and the mountain rises so prominently--looks very majestic from that vantage point.

And when snow levels drop low enough, sometimes there's even a light dusting up there.

Amazing Pic, this is now my backround of my computer. Thanks !