Vail Peak, Eagle Peak, Las Trampas Peak

Another long run, and another few peaks off the Nifty Ninety list. This time it was to the Las Trampas wilderness area in the east bay for three peaks, Vail, Eagle, and Las Trampas. I arrived early, and the gate was still locked, so I parked on the side of the road and walked up.

Early morning light hitting a peak.

 As I climbed up to Vail Peak I could feel it getting hotter. I just hoped it wouldn't get too warm before I finished. The views were decent once I got up on the ridge, but nothing spectacular. There is a use trail that goes to the high point of Vail Peak, and it had lots of poison oak. I seem to have managed to get through without touching any, which is nice.

Summit of Vail Peak. Not very interesting.

 From here it was a short run along the ridge to Eagle Peak. There is a short spur trail to the high point were there is a bench, and spectacular views across the valley to Mt Diablo.

Looking down a canyon between Vail and Eagle Peaks.

 I stopped for a few minutes to take some pictures and enjoy the view of Diablo. It was awesome in the early morning light.

Mt Diablo.

 From here I dropped down off the ridge on some steep trails and started to wind my way over to Las Trampas Peak. I wasn't paying attention, and missed the trail I intended to take up to the summit. Luckily there was another trail that I was able to use that didn't add much distance to the loop.

Looking back towards Eagle and Vail.

 Climbing up the hill I started to see a lot more people, and the temperature started getting higher. I was hot when I got up to the summit of Las Trampas, and stopped a minute in the shade to cool off some before going down.

Las Trampas peak, looking north.

 It was a quick run down to the main parking lot area, where I turned right and headed up to Rocky Ridge to do a quick SOTA activation. Climbing up the road in the sun wasn't much fun, but I made it, and even made some contacts with my 5watter homebrew rig.

Some shade on Rocky Ridge.

As I started heading down I finished the last of my water. This made the descent a lot more miserable than it needed to be, but I made it back to the road for the walk back to the car. I sucked down some water before heading back with the AC on full blast. This is a nice area, but July was probably not the best time to go.