I drove out to Contra Costa County to tackle a few easy summits as part of my
local peaks month. The first half of the month I had done almost nothing while
giving my knee a chance to recuperate, after which I've been doing some easy
hiking and more strenous biking (which seems to impact the knee less). Today
would be a hiking outing taking only a few hours.
Short Ridge
This ridge lies east of Interstate 680 in the community of Danville. Located
adjacent to Sycamore Valley Regional OSP, Short Ridge appears to be private
property, though it is not signed as such far as I could tell. It seems likely
that it was once ranchland, now sold to developers or possibly a government
agency's landbank. I approached from the north at the end of McCauley Rd, in a
upscale Danville neighborhood. There is an here with a
pass-thru to allow individuals but not vehicles. The pavement ends abruptly on
the other side, leading to another fence about 100yds further. This one does
not seem to be open for public use, but as the highpoint would be found on the
other side, I went over anyways. I plied a recently plowed path (for fire
supression, not agricultural purposes)up to where I found a
firmer ranch road running across its length. I explored a short distance to
before turning to and walking to
the point identified in ListsofJohn as the highpoint. It's an odd sort of point
though, as the ridge clearly continues to the southeast, climbing higher into
the adjacent Sycamore OSP. In fact, the OSP has a route called the Short Ridge
Trail which can be seen in Google maps, none of it actually landing on what the
topo maps identifies as Short Ridge. But that would make the ridge about 3mi
long instead of 1mi, so maybe the name Short Ridge would no longer be applicable
- who knows? It doesn't really matter as the pursuit of 3rd order summits is
rather silly anyway, I readily admit. At the identified point there is a lovely,
large oak crowning that by itself makes it a worthwhile
visit. can be seen in profile to the northeast along with a
collection of Danville neighborhoods around this modest summit. I returned to
the about 45min after setting out.
Pine Ridge / Shell Ridge
I next drove 3mi north to the at the edge of Mt. Diablo State
Park. $6 self-pay is required to park in the gravel lot, street parking in the
surrounding neighborhood restricted to permit parking only. The two named
ridges are a short hike from the TH, though no trail goes to either summit. The
passes by both of them and can be
used to access the pair which are separated by a small tributary of Pine Creek.
After depositing my fee, I visited first, hiking up from the
trail and across the with several possibilities.
My shoes collected stickers from the dry brown grass by the boatload. By the
time I returned to they had become so painful that I had to
pause to remove the lot of them. I then followed the trail a mile to the
northwest before climbing , once again pausing for sticker
removal upon to the trail. Kinda stupid to be climbing these
sort of hills at this time of year, to be honest. The weather was pretty nice
though, not too warm, and the park is lightly used in mid-week. Aside from a
herd of , the only other visitors were I
passed by
on my return. I was back to the TH by noon, about an hour and a half all told.
The Shell Ridge highpoint I climbed is NOT the same as currently depicted in
ListsofJohn and Peakbagger.com. That point is a mile and quarter to the
northwest along a lower extension of the ridgeline. The topo map shows 'Shell
Ridge' in a larger font here and it has more prominence than the one I climbed,
but otherwise I don't see how one can say it's the highpoint. Finding the
highpoint of a ridge which often joins another, higher ridge, is in itself
fraught with problems, but it makes for a good excuse to go visit a new place.