Matt Johanson - California Summits: A Guide to the 50 Best Accessible Peak Experiences in the Golden State

Matt Johanson writes about the outdoors for numerous California newspapers and magazines. California Summitsis his sixth book. Prior works include Sierra Summits, Yosemite Adventures, and Yosemite Epics. Matts writing has won awards from the International Center for Journalists, California News Publishers Association, Outdoor Writers Association of California, and National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation. He lives in Castro Valley with his wife Karen.

Scaling the mountain of writing California Summitsrequired the help of many climbing partners.

Im grateful to Jess dArbonne, Melissa Baker, Joanna Beyer, Kristen Mellitt, Katie ODell, and others at Globe Pequot Press who believed in this project and helped me to see it through.

Thanks to the dozens of park rangers, forest employees, and other experts who fact-checked the manuscript, helping me to improve the books accuracy and detail. Despite a pandemic and wildfire season that no doubt complicated their lives, they kindly volunteered their time to do so. They include Zach Alexander, Timothy Babalis, Craig Beck, Zachary Behrens, Jon Carney, Cindy Carrington, Ana Cholo, Sarah Clark, John Clearwater, Scott Clemons, Adam Collins-Torruella, Jan Cutts, Matthew Delcarlo, Christian Delich, Marty Dickes, Gavin Emmons, Mark Fincher, Joe Flannery, Diana Fredlund, Patrick Goodrich, Nancy Harmon, Lisa Herron, Patrick Joyce, Sintia Kawasaki-Yee, Paul Koehler, Don Lane, Maureen Lavelle, Ken Lavin, Don Lee, Duane Lyon, Miguel Macias, Kaitlin Mansfield, Dave Mason, Jean Nels, Alison Nielsen, Shanda Ochs, Rebecca Paterson, Christopher Pollock, Jacquie Proctor, Amelia Ryan, Carla Schoof, Madison Sink, Brandi Stewart, Elizabeth Storey, Kevin Turner, John Verhoeven, Lisa Wayne, Gordon Willey, and Andy Zdon.

Extra credit goes to these potent proofreaders from my journalism class at Castro Valley High School: Victoria Ceaser, Ada Chen, Austin Coffelt, Corinne Davidson, Olivia Dooley, Andrew Hui, Brinkley Johansen, Komal Khehra, Brooke Kundert, Cecilia Lin, Ali Nosseir, Paulina Peltola, Alex Tam, Alice Tang, Ethan To, and Amanda Wong. Way to go, great ones! Long live The Olympian Media Empire!

Others who provided advice, encouragement, and support include Liz Bowling, Kirsten Evers, Bill Gracie, Kory Hayden, Becky Moore, and Bubba Suess.

Most of all, thanks and love to my wife, Karen Johanson, and my entire family for supporting this effort and me.

I believe in positive thinking, but 2020 put that philosophy to the test. One year saw enough bad news to fill a decade. Wildfires broke records in California, racist violence set off nationwide protests, and COVID-19 ravaged the world. For many reasons, it seemed like the wrong time to climb mountains.

Yet I had signed a contract to produce the book in your hands by the end of the year, and I could not do that without several weeks of field work. So from my Bay Area home I traveled north, east, and south to ascend about twenty-five peaks, or half of this guides fifty featured outings.

Scaling summits helped me escape heavy headlines. I enjoyed climbing with old friends Morry Angell on Mount Saint Helena and Paul Denzler on Granite Chief. Yosemite Sam the Samurai Dog accompanied me on Stanislaus Peak and many others. My brother Dan Johanson, his wife Hazel, and their children Nathan and Kaitlyn made a few family-friendly ascents with me, like Mount Davidson. My sister-in-law Galina Johanson climbed like a champ on her first-ever mountain, Jobs Peak. I loved hiking with my goddaughter Linnae Johansson on the Pacific Crest Trail for three days. Climbing Mount Diablo with my mom Diane Johanson, our first summit together, ranks as my favorite trek of the year.

Numerous challenges hindered my climbing spree, like hundreds of park closures to slow the spread of coronavirus. Luckily I was able to navigate them to hike atop Mount Sizer, Montara Mountain, Mount Tamalpais, and Tioga Peak. A surprise summer snowstorm and two flat tires impaired road trips I shared with my friend Bob Leung. We still managed to explore both Death Valley National Park and the North State, climbing Wildrose Peak, Cinder Cone, Granite Peak, and others.

By the time I drove south in August, wildfire and smoke had closed off my intended hike up San Gorgonio Mountain. Instead, I hiked with my friend David McPhee and his sons Kacen and Vincent up Echo Mountain. As the pandemic surged in summer, everyone wore masks to avoid infection on the narrow trail, a sight I had never before seen or expected. Even among the mountains, there was no escaping the years hard news.

But while ball games, music concerts, and indoor dining disappeared as recreation options, millions of people who sheltered in place for months found relief outdoors. In fact, some summits from this book saw kindness and selfless heroism. Soccer coach Joe Owen didnt walk but ran up Mount Diablo (13 miles and 3,400 feet of climbing) every day in April to raise thousands of dollars for a local food bank. Members of Fremont High Schools football team helped a wheelchair-bound climber reach the summit of Mission Peak in August. And thousands of firefighters risked life and limb to protect our forests and the public through the summer and fall.