Black Point Loop, Mt Diablo and Tarantulas!

 I previously mentioned we had a fire out of Mitchell Canyon last Wednesday evening. I headed out Thursday morning to see if the trail was open and what the damage was. It was a small fire, and I'll post those pictures in a later post.  The fire was right off the beginning of Black Point Trail, at the first park bench.  I headed up for a better view.  Originally, I intended to just get a view of the burned area and come back down.  However, for no particular reason, I just kept climbing.  Before I really realized what I was doing, I was more than half way up the ridge, and just decided to keep going and go up and over and come down the back side.  I had done this loop years ago with Brian, in the opposite direction, and he had ended up covered in ticks.  I couldn't make myself stop, though. I hope you'll be able to see a small bit from the pictures how beautiful of a trail this is!

 Below, center of the pic, is the old water tower I so enjoy getting pictures of.

 Below, I stopped to look back down behind me. The view looking back was as beautiful as the view looking forward.

 Once I got to the top of the ridge, I had views down both sides, the front of Diablo, and the back.  Below is looking down the front of the mountain.  This is looking towards Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill.  It is also a nice shot of Brian's office.  He's the last building on the right in the cluster of office buildings.

 A lot of the trail on the back side of the loop looks like this, it's pretty overgrown.  I was really hoping we were past tick season because there was no way through without brushing up against plants.

 The back side has a lot of loose, steep gravel.  However, now having done this in both directions, it was much easier going down the gravel than it was coming up it.

 Below, Black Point Trail ends at Red Dirt Rd in White Canyon.

 It's called White Canyon because there is a time of year it's full of "wild white bushes".  The only white thing I saw, however, was a galloping white horse. I caught it in the below pic right at the last second as it went over the hill.

 Once I made it back out to Mitchell Canyon, I started seeing tarantulas! This was the first morning I had seen any this year, and was treated to 3 different ones.

It was yet another morning I went home feeling very spoiled to live where we do, having such a huge, beautiful, wild back yard!