[View Large to see the wild mustard.] Springtime on Mt. Diablo after a rain. Wild Mustard and at least three species of oak on "my" mountain. Quite a difference between the hot, dry months of summer and springtime. Perhaps as much as 70% of all the images of birds, insects, and reptiles on my Flickr pages were taken on Mt. Diablo.
I have been caught in thunderstorms, hail storms, and just plain downpours while hiking the hills. It can be beautiful at those times, but in the winter at 30 degrees F, getting soaked is not a good idea. Well, it was never in the plan when I woke up, but when hiking Diablo, I usually didn't have a plan.
By the way, to have any clouds is almost unusual in this part of California. Either that, or I wasn't paying attention before the drought when I had very few opportunities to capture clouds like this. This image is really one of a kind: bright blue skies behind billowy clouds with wild mustard fields and the lush green that one only sees after a rain. In 20 years of hiking the hills, this was a scene that ... I actually stopped walking and sat for a half hour to take in.
To see even more dramatic images of this part of northern California (actually, northwest central!), see John Fox's Flickr site (
www.flickr.com/photos/omnitrigger/). John's images have often gotten me out of bed, and spurred me to get up on this side of the hills.
