Mount Diablo

I'd hiked Mount Diablo plenty of times before this one, but this was the first time I decided to run it instead. No food before or during — just laced up and went straight up the mountain on a completely empty stomach, which made the climbing feel a lot more brutal than it needed to be, but also weirdly satisfying to push through.

The elevation climb on the way to the summit is relentless no matter how you're moving, and running it added a whole different kind of burn to the usual leg-and-lung workout of getting up Diablo. I passed a mountain biker grinding up the same steep section partway up, which felt like a small victory given how hard I was working just to keep moving.

Stood at the summit observation deck looking back down the ridge toward North Peak, completely spent, but glad I'd finally tried this mountain as a run instead of a hike. Overall I loved the experience — it's a different mountain entirely when you're trying to run up it instead of just walk.

A straightforward there-and-back to Mount Diablo's main summit, done on a clear, warm August morning. The trail up through the manzanita tunnels was already casting long, dappled morning shadows early in the hike, a nice contrast to the exposed, sun-baked stretches higher up on the mountain.

From the upper ridgelines, a distant smoke plume was visible rising from somewhere out in the hills toward the coast — a small, sobering reminder of just how dry California gets by the height of summer, even with the mountain itself still green in patches. The golden late-summer grasslands rolled out in every direction from the higher viewpoints, a classic Diablo summer look.

13.6 miles and around 3,200 feet of gain by my phone's tracker for the round trip — a solid, straightforward summit day, and a beautiful morning to be out on the mountain despite the smoke on the horizon.