Black Mountain... for real!

Last week, San showed me the trailer for Black Mountain by going through a shorter hike from a higher starting point in Montebello open space preserve. 

This week the hiking group went for the real deal. Start at PG&E and go through Quarry trail to Black Mountain. This is one of the hardest local same day hikes. 

We hiked 14 miles and climbed 3400 feet in 5 hours 45 minutes including a 15 minute photo break at the summit and two five minute stops at the PG&E as we passed it on the way up and down!

This was the first time for me in this group! (San has done this twice already). There was a doubt on our ability to do this in reasonable time.  Even if we were going to take it one foot at a time, the plan was to do this hike. Even though we were tired, the folks were actually happy enough to jump for joy when we got back down! They were all happy for me as I am the slowest in the group. Everytime I see something interesting, the camera comes out and that slows me down further!

Our hiking group has now covered all the top 10 difficult one day hikes in bay area and we are glad we started this activity during COVID! (each of these has blog posts and pictures)

There was no fancy clouds or sunset colors like the other evening, but clear visibility. We could see the sun shine off the Salesforce tower in SFO and spot every landmark from our own Apple spaceship to the SFO skyline.. 

Here are some more pictures!

some panos

There are folks who bike here from the Montebello side!

Our ace photographer friend joined us for this hike and we wanted to get another park bench shot.. this goes in our collection..the best pictures on this bench are when the sun is not yet up! we missed that on the way up.. 

After coming back and getting a 90 minute nap, did a hot yoga class! Still hydrating to get back to normal this morning! 

and a great shot from Raja.. 

Will announce Raja's photo book on the Ranco San Antonio Preserve, once he gets to it!!

Glad we did this hike! The last two miles up was really difficult! Now that we have gone there once, next time should be easier!