Audible Mount Diablo

As you wind your way through the lovely hills of Lime Ridge, keep an eye out for wildlife. In this episode Seth Adams and Scott Hein discuss 1) one that's still common all over the area 2) an introduced species whose numbers have exploded and 3) a native species that's making a heartening comeback.

Sponsored by Save Mount Diablo in partnership with Mount Diablo Interpretive Association. First published in 2012. Photos by Scott Hein. Music by Phil Heywood.

We regret an error in this version: what is labeled "mule deer" is actually a Columbian black-tailed deer.

Learn about a rare plant that waits until summer to grace the hills of Lime Ridge Open Space on the eastern edge of Walnut Creek, California.

Featuring Heath Bartosh. Sponsored by Save Mount Diablo in partnership with Mount Diablo Interpretive Association. Photos courtesy of Scott Hein and Heath Bartosh. First published in 2012.

Can you name three pine species that grow in Mount Diablo State Park? Learn to ID them by their pinecones (2 supersized, 1 clingy). Hear about how they're adapted to fire and drought. Meet the gun-toting botanists who collected their cones in the 1830s.

A Mount Diablo Interpretive Association video featuring Ken Lavin and Seth Adams. Production by Joan Hamilton. Music by Music Revolution. Photos by Joan Hamilton, Neal Kramer, Kendall Oei, and courtesy of Strybing Arboretum. Adapted from Audible Mount Diablo's Curry Point, Mitchell Canyon, and Falls Trail guides sponsored by Mount Diablo Interpretive Association and Save Mount Diablo. Special thanks to Wild Mount Diablo team members Wally De Young, Anastasia Hobbet, and Kendall Oei.

In the final episode of our Falls Trail tour, learn about some of the wild and not-so-wild life you might see along the winding Wasserman Trail, including mariposa lilies and wild pigs.

"Falls Trail" is 13-part series featuring Ken Lavin, Burt Bogardus, Paul Cardinet, and Jenn Roe. Presented by Mount Diablo Interpretive Association in partnership with Save Mount Diablo.

There's still water on the Falls Trail. As you get near the end of the loop, you can check out a Mount Diablo rock formed from what Rachel Carson called "the long snowfall of the sea."

"Falls Trail" is 13-part series featuring Ken Lavin, Burt Bogardus, Paul Cardinet, and Jenn Roe. Presented by Mount Diablo Interpretive Association in partnership with Save Mount Diablo.

About halfway into this classic Mount Diablo hike, we get our first good look at the waterfalls of Wild Oat Canyon and the well-traveled rock that hosts the show: pillow basalt.

"Falls Trail" is 13-part series featuring Ken Lavin, Burt Bogardus, Paul Cardinet, and Jenn Roe. Presented by Mount Diablo Interpretive Association in partnership with Save Mount Diablo.

In this cool spring, plenty of flowers still flank the Falls Trail, and interesting shrubs, too. Thanks to the area's serpentine soils, unusual species abound—like scrawny Quercus durata: leather oak.

Meet Mount Diablo's rarest oak, and the feminist who first named it for science: Albert Kellogg.

"Falls Trail" is 13-part series featuring Ken Lavin, Burt Bogardus, Paul Cardinet, and Jenn Roe. Presented by Mount Diablo Interpretive Association in partnership with Save Mount Diablo.

History sleuths: Wander around an old cabin site in Mount Diablo State Park to find clues about how people used and misused this land in the 20th century. And how today's volunteer "Trash Removal Project" is making things right.

"Falls Trail" is 13-part series featuring Ken Lavin, Burt Bogardus, Paul Cardinet, and Jenn Roe. Presented by Mount Diablo Interpretive Association in partnership with Save Mount Diablo.

A first-person account of a 1977 fire in Mount Diablo State Park from former ranger Burt Bogardus. An ill-fated tree planting effort followed that blaze, as well as construction of the Mary Bowerman Trail at the summit.

"Falls Trail" is 13-part series featuring Ken Lavin, Burt Bogardus, Paul Cardinet, and Jenn Roe. Presented by Mount Diablo Interpretive Association in partnership with Save Mount Diablo.