Martinez,
The county seat of Contra Costa county. The town has a picturesque situation, several pleasant residences, very beautiful surroundings, and a charming climate. The celebrated Alhambra ranch, which has taken several medals as the best cultivated farm, yielding the best fruits, and the best native wine in the State, lies but a short distance hence. Five miles back from Martinez and the bay, connected with the former by stage and with the latter by a navigable creek, stands
Pacheco,
A quiet, pleasant, country town, noted as the shipping point of the broad and fertile agricultural fields of the Diablo and San Ramon valleys, lying around and beyond it. The manufacture of carriages and agricultural implements also conduce to its prosperity and importance. Another daily stage line also connects this town with Oakland.
Eight miles beyond Pacheco, further in and higher up, is
Clayton,
The largest and most romantically situated town in this part of the State, and in the latter particular, surpassed by few on the coast. Occupying an elevated bench, or plateau, it commands fine views, and having many wide-spreading oaks scattered through and around, it possesses much intrinsic beauty. Mr. Clayton, whose name the town has taken, has a vineyard of nearly forty thousand vines, which, though never irrigated, are vigorous and prolific. He sends his excellent grapes directly to San Francisco, for the immediate market which they are sure to command, and thus realizes a greater profit than by making them into wine. Other vineyards and orchards in this vicinity have over one hundred thousand vines, and nearly forty thousand fruit trees. Clayton is the usual point of departure for the ascent of
Mount Diablo,
Three thousand eight hundred and seventy-six feet high, and christened with its infernal appellation because, like its satanic prototype, it seldom lets men out of its sight. The best time to climb the mountain is early in the morning—the earlier the better. If one can stand on the summit at sunrise he will receive the most ample reward for his early rising. The distance from Clayton up is eight miles; the time occupied by a comfortable ascent is a little over two hours. If there are ladies, or persons unused to riding and climbing, the party should allow a good three hours. The Clayton livery stable furnishes trained saddle horses for $2.50 a day. The expense of a guide, who furnishes his own horse, is $4.00 for the trip, which, of course, as in Yosemite, is usually divided among the party. Though not absolutely necessary to employ a guide, it is decidedly safer and better, especially if the party includes ladies, as the trail is in some places difficult, and even dangerous to strangers. The first four miles south from Clayton a good carriage-road follows the course of a stream through a deep cañon. Over this part, ladies unused to the saddle, and desiring to avoid unnecessary fatigue, would better ride on wheels. At the end of this road, near a farm-house, the tourist turns to the right, and follows a cut trail westerly to Deer Flat, where are two huts and a spring. Beyond Deer Flat, the trail runs southeasterly to the top of a ridge in sight of the flat below, and thence lies along the top of this ridge, two and a half miles to the summit, where, for the first time in his life, probably, the traveler may get the devil fairly under his feet—or at least the devil's mountain.
In the opinion of most tourists, this peak commands a more extensive, varied, and beautiful prospect than any equal elevation in the world. The mountain has two peaks, lying in a northeast and southwest line, nearly three miles apart. The southwestern one is the higher, and possesses scientific or topographical interest, from the fact that the State Survey made it one of the three "initial points," from which they ran the "base lines" and "meridian lines," from which or by which the townships and sections are reckoned and located in all extensive conveyances of land. This mountain has an additional claim to its sulphurous surname, from the fact that it is supposed to have been, formerly, a volcano.