Mar 16th, Mt Diablo State Park, 14 miles, 4000 ft elevation, 3,500KCal

It's been our burning desire to summit Mt Diablo this year, especially since we have been seeing it on every hike we have been on. Though I was a bit skeptical about my own ability to complete the loop, I tried not to reveal my fear to the others. But I guess our motivation and the inner desire helped us to pull it off. All of us were better equipped  for this hike with hiking poles, boots, ample food and water. It was very foggy when we started off on the hike at 8:30 AM from the Mitchell Canyon Staging area, Clayton. While there were a number of options to go up, we took the Back Creek trail and it was nearly 7 miles of uphill hike. I wished the there was some breeze so that we wouldn't feel that exhausted. At every mile we felt summit is closer to us but even after 5 mile of constant climb it felt  as if we had not reached any closer. We met other hiking teams who hiked several times in a year to the summit to see the wild flowers in bloom. But for some of us it seemed like once in year was more than enough while for others in the group, once in a life time was more than enough :). With a few 5 min breaks, we reached summit at 12.45 PM and quickly polished off the food & ice cream. Few of the people who had driven up to the summit, commended us for the hike we did. The views along the trail were spectacular and the photos do no justice to it. The trail allowed us to get a 360 view of Bay Area.

The hike downhill was no less spectacular, but we had to keep a close watch on the trail, since loose rocks and pebbles made it very slippery. One of the team members slipped and fell, but was fortunate not to get too hurt. The constant downhill hike put severe stress on our knees and calf muscles. We finished the downhill 7 mile portion of the hike in less than 3 hours. Even though we were exhausted, we were already planning our next big hike at Yosemite in mid-May. A bit crazy isn't it? We recovered some of the last carbs by having pizza and crashed to bed @8.30PM while some of us added Advil and/or chilled beers:).
Total Hike time - 7Hr

Most of the downhill trail  is like this

View of Summit from where we are

Lonely CA poppy

View of Summit from another point

At the summit

on our way back

Mt Diablo State Park- Mitchell Canyon Staging Area - Back Creek trail - Bald Eagle Trail - North Peak Trail - Summit Trail - Summit - Juniper Trail - Deer Flat Road - Mitchell Canyon Road - Mitchell Canyon Staging Area

Difficulty: 8.5/10