Due to traffic on the freeway, we didn't arrive at the Laura Court trailhead until after 9am. There were already several cars parked there. The sign at the trailhead only said Fire Road. My hiking partner was very upset because he thought we arrived at the wrong place. I had to show him a photo from the Social Hikers website to convince him that we were indeed at the right trailhead.

The fire road was very steep. Today was sunny and bright, and the trail didn't provide many shades. I saw 2 quails on Chamise Trail. Before I could take a photo, they quickly flew up to hide in a big tree. There weren't many wildflowers on this trail. We met several local hikers/runners, who didn't carry anything, not even a water bottle!

We stopped by the Mary Davey Memorial before turning into Black Mountain Trail. Black Mountain Trail had more trees and wildflowers, and it provided a more pleasant hike. We continued the zigzagged, gentle dirt road up. Just when I thought this to be an easy hike, we arrived at an electricity tower, and the trail became much steeper after that. The last mile on Black Mountain Trail before reaching Monte Bello Road was steep, hot and painful.

We have been to Black Mountain a couple times, hiking from the Monte Bello side. Therefore, we already knew that the summit didn't provide a panoramic view like Saint Helena or Diablo. There were several hikers reaching the summit around the same time. We had a quick lunch there before going down.

On our way down, we saw many hikers climbing up, including a large group of boy scouts going on a camping trip. I didn’t realize that this trail was so popular! We decided to take a different route going down when we reached a junction. Quarry Trail was a lot steeper and had more bugs. The only advantage of this route was that there was a spot full of beautiful flowers. There were several trails connecting to the High Meadow Trail. We took a wrong turn and had to backtrack and ended up spending more time going down than climbing up! We finally arrived back to our car around 3:30pm.

This was our last peak of the 6-peak challenge. Mission accomplished!

Participating in the 6-peak challenge allowed us to try new trails we didn't do before. Thanks!