I’ll say this: to a person accustomed to climbing Diablo in moderate, rainy weather, the climb on a sunny, 80-degree day is a whole different animal. Calochortus pulchellus in the shade, Stylomecon up the hill, and a gigantic valley full of Ceanothus in full bloom. No camera, as I was looking to leave weight behind. In fact, I hardly even took clothes: just a black t-shirt and running tights, hedging my bets between hot ascent and late cold wind on the way down. The half-expected shrieks of outrage and horror at the fat guy wearing Spandex never materialized. Counterintutively, in fact, a number of people — women, mostly — struck up conversations with me along the trail.
Among them were Dixie and Amy, who appeared in mid-trail, dryad-seeming, apparently rubbing poison oak on their nostrils. I said something in mild alarm but it was another plant they were sniffing, one that grew beneath the poison oak, and they laughed and thanked me for my concern. They were budding herbalists. We started talking plants. I spent the next half hour with them walking the trail, Amy shooting photos of the plants we talked about, Dixie asking me to identify them, me doing so successfully about three quarters of the time, and then stammering every time I made eye contact with Amy. I get self-conscious around dryads.
(D&A, if you do stop by here, Dixie was right and I was wrong about that white flowering Ceanothus — Ceanothus cuneatus — the yellow composite we looked at growing through the chamise was Ericameria, and Edward K. Balls in Early Uses of California Plants says that California coffeeberry bark “has similar properties and is frequently used by individuals as a substitute for [Cascara sagrada]”. UC Press published Balls’ book in 1962, and apparently mentioning laxatives was considered rude back then. And do drop a note. I’d love to stay in touch.)
The easiest summit yet, despite the dry and heat. 13 miles hiked and 3786 feet climbed. 141 miles and 30,273 feet climbed year to date. One of the best hikes so far this year, and not just because of the dryads.
