Today I went to the Mitchell Canyon entrance to Mt. Diablo, a part of the big mountain I’ve never visited before. I hiked, mostly off trail and across country, up and down some very steep slopes, slick with tall grass. Everything’s still green, for now, from the recent rainfall we’ve had. But California’s snowpack’s 40 percent below normal and we’re facing another deadly dry summer and autumn. So it felt good to enjoy a brief, ephemeral springtime today for two or three hours.
I started my hike on “Bruce Lee Trail.”
A rusty water tank with Clayton Quarry in the background.
Ranunculus.
Shooting Star, Dodecatheon clevelandii.
Blue Dicks, Dichelostemma capitatum.
Purple sanicle, Sanicula bipinnatifida.
A pale crab spider hiding in a poppy.
Aesculus californica.
My idyllic lunch spot.
Pinus coulteri.
Eleodes gigantea, one of our largest beetles.
It’s called a “headstand beetle” due to its defensive pose.
Sceloporus occidentalis.
An itinerant grasshopper.
Oak apple galls.
Mistletoe, Phoradendron serotinum.
Tom turkeys parading in the crepuscule of the forest.
Steven E. F. Brown 