Events
Every year on December 7 the aircraft beacon atop the summit building is illuminated from sunset to dawn. A ceremony memorializing the attack on Pearl Harbor on this day in 1941 is held at the summit, with some of the few remaining survivors who are present. The public is welcome and visitors on this day should enter the park before 4:00 PM. General parking will be at the lower lot on these days, with a short uphill walk by trail or road to the summit. Visitors may leave later than usual — this is one of the few opportunities to view the sunset from the peak, weather permitting, without an overnight stay.
Under cloudless conditions, more interesting than the sunset itself is the view of the progression of the mountain's shadow across the California Central Valley to the distant Sierra Nevada, finally appearing for a few moments above the horizon as a shadow in the post-sunset sky glow.
In April 1946, an Army C-45 transport plane crashed on the north side of the mountain, killing the pilot and co-pilot.
Save Mount Diablo sponsors many spring and fall schedules of events on the mountain, Spring on Diablo and Autumn on Diablo, as well as many other special events, including its anniversary event, Moonlight on the Mountain; Four Days Diablo, a trip on the Diablo Trail; the Mount Diablo Challenge, an annual hill climb to the summit with more than 1,100 cyclists each October; and the Mount Diablo Trail Adventure, combined 10k and half-marathon hikes and runs.
The park is popular in winter, when Bay Area residents can enjoy the rare experience of snowfall on the mountain. Snow occurs from the lower reaches of the park all the way to the peak, as was the case in February 2001 and February and March 2006. On Friday, March 10, 2006, an extremely cold storm moved into the region from the Gulf of Alaska, and noticeable amounts of snow fell in all regions of the Bay Area above 500 feet (152 m). The summit of the mountain received around six inches (15 cm) of snow at its peak, and the access roads were closed to automobiles at the 3,000 feet (914 m) mark due to the hazardous icy conditions above.
Occasionally there will be public access to astronomical observations made by a local astronomy club. This club has been allocated a small parcel on the mountain and is developing a permanent observatory at this location. The instrument to be installed will have digital-imaging capabilities and visitors will be able to take home an astronomical image that they may display on their home computer system.
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Famous quotes containing the word events:
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“If I have renounced the search of truth, if I have come into the port of some pretending dogmatism, some new church, some Schelling or Cousin, I have died to all use of these new events that are born out of prolific time into multitude of life every hour. I am as bankrupt to whom brilliant opportunities offer in vain. He has just foreclosed his freedom, tied his hands, locked himself up and given the key to another to keep.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“By many a legendary tale of violence and wrong, as well as by events which have passed before their eyes, these people have been taught to look upon white men with abhorrence.... I can sympathize with the spirit which prompts the Typee warrior to guard all the passes to his valley with the point of his levelled spear, and, standing upon the beach, with his back turned upon his green home, to hold at bay the intruding European.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)