Black Diamond Mines
One of the many reasons why I love living here is the abundance of parks and recreation areas. The East Bay Regional Park District alone has 73 parks (125,000 acres and 1,250 miles of trails) offering a wide variety of recreational and educational activities - hiking, cycling, fishing, picnicking, etc.
The past few years have seen us visit the parks less and less due to many activities during the weekends. We promised to remedy that this year, and on a day when we had a few hours of free time. we decided to revisit Black Diamond Mines 30 miles away for a little walk about. A spur-of-the-moment drive because we were curious about any improvements. We can't remember exactly when the first and only visit was but we surmised it must have been sometime in the late 90s, yikes! You see it is really about time to make a second visit.
We could only devote a little time to do a short trail and take a few photos. The result of our little walk and the things we saw are here:
Long distance travel is wonderful, but it's nice to have places a little closer to home to explore too (especially these days). And the coal mining area made for a fascinating hike Maria! We always like to think we've done a fair amount of California exploring exploring on trips over all the years we lived in Oregon, but this is definitely a new place and new information. Most interesting!
ReplyDeleteInteresting place--you are fortunate tp have so many nearby parks to explore. Both my grandfathers were coal miners in Pennsylvania and I once went on an underground mine tour in the area in which they worked. Such hard work!
ReplyDeleteThat's a beautiful place. I am glad places like former coal mining areas are being preserved in such a positive way. I'm really intrigued with the fused branches on the oak tree in one of your photos.
ReplyDeleteMy maternal grandfather was a miner all over the pacific northwest, ending up in Butte Montana. I'm intrigued about the whole mining thing.
Great shots.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting location. I've never head of this area, so thanks for the post!
ReplyDeleteOh my! How fun to see somewhere I know so well! Beautiful photos. I now live in Oregon (since 2011), but grew up in Lafayette (it was Walnut Creek then), and most of my adult life was in Concord. I can't tell you how many times my children had programs at Black Diamond mines!
ReplyDeleteYou're lucky to live close to beautiful parks and recreational area. Wonderful photos of your trip. Thanks for taking us along.
ReplyDelete...a beautiful place to explore, thanks for taking me along.
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ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful place. Thank you for sharing.
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