Audible Mount Diablo

TREES AS LIVING HISTORY  Mount Diablo's oaks, pines, bays, and buckeyes have tales to tell—if you know what to look for.  Presented by Save Mount Diablo, in partnership with Mount Diablo Interpretive Association.  Featuring Heath Bartosh, Seth Adams, Robert Doyle, Lindsey Hendricks, Brian Peterson, Cyndy Shafer. Photographs: Scott Hein, Stephen Joseph, Troy Montemayor and Seth Adams, Heath Bartosh...

As we head into another fire season in the Bay Area,  learn how a small 2013 blaze increased knowledge about life on the East Bay's most iconic peak.  Presented by Save Mount Diablo, in partnership with Mount Diablo Interpretive Association.  Featuring Heath Bartosh, Seth Adams, Robert Doyle, Lindsey Hendricks, Brian Peterson, Cyndy Shafer. Photographs: Scott Hein, Stephen Joseph, Troy Montemayor....

Why is Mount Diablo so central to California's cultural and natural history? Find out on a hike near the 3,849-foot summit.  Presented by Save Mount Diablo, in partnership with Mount Diablo Interpretive Association. Originally published in 2019. Featuring Heath Bartosh, Seth Adams, Robert Doyle, Lindsey Hendricks, Brian Peterson, Cyndy Shafer. Photographs: Scott Hein, Stephen Joseph and Seth Adams...

INTRODUCTION    Enjoy five fascinating hikes led by rare-plant expert Heath Bartosh. Gain an appreciation for the long-hidden flora revealed by recent fires. Nod to the work of the scientists who've worked these storied slopes. And get ready to make your own discoveries!  Episode 1 of "Harvest of Fire," a nine-part series presented by Save Mount Diablo, in partnership with Mount Diablo Interpretiv...

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 pu...

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 b...

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 Q uercus 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 Sa...

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...

Meet "the grandfather of national trails," an enterprising equestrian who built more than 200 miles of trails in the East Bay area. His spirit lives on in the volunteers who work on trails in the park today.  "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.

Pine Canyon's peregrine falcons had a difficult season in 2021, when all four chicks were killed by a great-horned owl in a territorial dispute. Follow a team of California naturalists, stewards, and detectives as they tell the story of how the fastest animal on the planet fared last season.  A Mount Diablo Interpretive Association video, produced by Wally De Young. 

We listen to lively sounds of the creek as we head up Donner Canyon, named for an unfortunate family that lived here in the late 1800s. On the way: tales of history, valley oaks, and the widely feared "guardian of the woodland," poison oak.  "Falls Trail" is 13-part series featuring Ken Lavin, Burt Bogardus, Paul Cardinet, and Jenn Roe. Presented by Mount Diablo Interpretive Association in partner...

The rains have come. Which makes it a beautiful time to ponder the history, geology, plants, and animals to be found along one of Mount Diablo's classic hikes, the FALLS TRAIL. Join us for episode one of this 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. Originally published...

From the top of Lime Ridge, you can see Mount Diablo—and a surprisingly vast expanse of GRASSLAND in between. Learn about who owns these lands and some of the wild treasures they contain, including relicts of a drier climate such as desert olives and sagebrush lizards.  From a tour of Lime Ridge featuring Seth Adams and Scott Hein, originally published by Save Mount Diablo in 2012.  See Save Mount...

How a colorful reptile may help lower the incidence of Lyme disease in California. Episode 6.1 in Save Mount Diablo's guide to Lime Ridge, featuring Scott Hein and Seth Adams. 

In episode 6 of our Lime Ridge Tour, we take an inside look at Bay Area shrublands, also known as CHAPARRAL. They may look lifeless at times, but they nurture a rich assemblage of plants and animals, including Alameda whipsnakes, hummingbirds, and blue-gray gnatcatchers.  Sponsored by Save Mount Diablo in partnership with Mount Diablo Interpretive Association. Featuring Seth Adams and Scott Hein....

After a winter of abundant rain and even snow, WILDFLOWERS are waking up in the East Bay. As you get out to enjoy them, keep in mind that there are still discoveries to be made. In 2008, for example, Carpenter David Gowen found two phlox species new to science in LIME RIDGE OPEN SPACE, nearly surrounded by Walnut Creek and Concord. It's one more example of how important it is to protect and respec...

It may be cold and stormy now, but sunshine and spring wildflowers are on the way. In this final episode of our history series, dream about how you'd like to enjoy Mount Diablo State Park in the days ahead.   This series  features Ken Lavin, Seth Adams, Robert Doyle, Michael Marchiano, Vincent Medina, and Cameron Morrison. Presented by Mount Diablo Interpretive Association in partnership with Save...

After recent atmospheric rivers, Mount Diablo State Park has a lot of re-building to do. But some of its oldest infrastructure has withstood a hundred years of storms. Its summit building, stone walls, and some picnic tables and stoves were the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a  government program that gave men jobs during the Depression in the 1930s.  This is episode five of "A Brief His...

Here are a few of the sights we savored on Mount Diablo in 2022. May your 2023 be filled with new delights! Happy New Year from the Wild Mount Diablo team.