Climb

by Laurie Search

Title

Climb

Artist

Laurie Search

Medium

Photograph - Digital Photography

Description

Mt. Diablo State Park, Danville, CA.......According to Wikipedia: Mount Diablo is a mountain of the Diablo Range, in Contra Costa County of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area, in northern California. It is located south of Clayton and northeast of Danville..........It is an isolated upthrust peak of 3,864 feet (1,178 m), visible from most of the San Francisco Bay Area. Mount Diablo appears from many angles to be a double pyramid and includes many subsidiary peaks, the largest and closest of which is the other half of the double pyramid, North Peak, nearly as high in elevation at 3,557 feet (1,084 m) and about one mile northeast of the main summit..........The summit is accessible by foot, bicycle, or motor vehicle. Road access is via North Gate Road or South Gate Road. The record time by bicycle from The Athenian School in the town of Danville to the summit is 43:33 minutes..........The peak is the centerpiece of Mount Diablo State Park, a state park of about 20,000 acres (8,000 ha) in area. The park was the first public open space of a complex—according to Save Mount Diablo—now including 38 preserves, including nearby city open spaces, regional parks, watersheds, that are buffered in some areas with private lands protected with conservation easements. Preserved lands on and around Mount Diablo total more than 90,000 acres (36,000 ha). The day use fee for Mount Diablo State Park is $10 per vehicle..........Except for distant views from the Central Valley, Mount Diablo's northwestern double pyramid view is the most familiar to Northern California residents.[vague] This view however only includes a minor part of the mountain's acreage, most of which stretches east and southeast from the summit through Altamont Pass to the rest of the northern Diablo Range. On a clear day the Sierra Nevada is plainly visible. (The best views are after a winter storm; a snowy Sierra shows up better, and summer is likely to be hazy.) The southernmost mountain of the volcanic Cascade Range, Lassen Peak, 181 miles (291 km) away, is occasionally visible. Mount Shasta, 240 miles away, is hidden by the curvature of the earth. Sentinel Dome in Yosemite National Park is visible, but Half Dome is hidden by the 8000-foot ridge at 37.755N 119.6657W. Eight bridges are visible, from west to east; San Mateo; Bay; Golden Gate; San Rafael; Carquinez; Benicia; Antioch and Rio Vista..........Historic claims that the mountain's viewshed is the largest in the world—or second largest after Mount Kilimanjaro—are unfounded. It does boast one of the largest viewsheds in the Western United States and it played a key role in California history. Countless peaks in the state are taller, but Mount Diablo has a remarkable visual prominence for a mountain of such modest elevation. Its recognizable form and looming presence over so much of the bay, delta, and Central Valley, and good visibility even from the Mother Lode, all key regions during the gold rush and early statehood, made it not just a well-known visual touchstone but an important landmark for mapping and navigation. The summit serves as the reference datum for land surveying in much of northern California and Nevada.

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September 23rd, 2014

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