Mount Diablo, Twin Peaks & Mitchell Rock

This is one of my favorite hikes on this whole list, and it's got nothing to do with the mileage or the gain. A rare winter storm dropped real, serious snow across the Bay Area at the end of February 2023, and Mount Diablo — a mountain that averages something like 1.2 inches of snowfall a year — ended up buried in it. I wasn't about to let a chance like that go by, so I set out for a 16-mile day taking in Diablo's main summit along with Twin Peaks and Mitchell Rock, out of Mitchell Canyon.

It was genuinely awesome to see this much snow out there — fog and low cloud rolling through the canyons most of the day, snow-loaded pines and chaparral all the way up, and long stretches of trail buried deep enough that every step took real effort. It's also fair to say it wasn't always fun hiking in it. Postholing through drifts, picking through icy sections on the steeper pitches, and losing the trail under snow more than once made this a much slower, harder version of a route I've done plenty of times in normal conditions.

The best part of the day, by far, was the summit scene. Diablo's main summit was packed with people who'd made the trip up just to see snow in the Bay Area, some of them seeing snow for the first time in their lives, and somebody had even built a full snowman up there at 3,849 feet. Watching everyone out there soaking it in, kids and adults alike, made the whole slog worth it — the smile on my face in the photos really shows it.

Twin Peaks and Mitchell Rock added their own character to the day, snow-draped rock formations that looked completely unfamiliar compared to their usual dry, exposed selves. A storm like this doesn't come around often here — maybe it'll happen more now, who knows — but for one day, this felt less like the East Bay and more like a proper winter mountain.