Beautiful spring day for a hike.
Bill was leading this hike of the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve up in Contra Costa County.
The fellow hikers consisted of Sandy, Susan, Monique, Cindy, Dave and myself.
My GeoCaching partners, Jim and Diana, joined us for the mine tour.

Lots of wildflowers were blooming, Turkey Vultures circling and had a tour of an old sand mine.

We first visited the Greathouse visitor center to checkout the artifacts, old pics of the coal and sand mining operations and a video of life at the mines.

We then continued our hike stopping to checkout an inclined shaft which was an entrance to an old coal mine.

As we hiked along the wildflower covered green hills and views of the delta, we stopped at "Jim's Place". This was a little underground home with a round hole in the ceiling for a stove pipe.

At this point we had to quicken our pace as our scheduled 1:00 mine tour was fast approaching.
We hiked down a little canyon to the Nortonville road where there was one last hill to climb before the mine tour.
We quickly passed by the Rose Hill Cemetary and arrived at the Hazel-Atlas mine entrance just a little late.

The tour guide showed a slide show of the mining operations and then a tour through the old sand mine. We were provided with hardhats and flashlights. It was a chilly ~56 degrees in the mine and we were able to see a large "Stope" or chamber where the sand was blasted out.

After the tour, we had lunch ( Cindy brought some sugar cookies ) and then hiked up the hill to make a proper visit at the cemetary.

We tried to find a GeoCache near the cemetary, but it was too high and far to make a proper attempt to find it.

As it turns out, my GeoCaching partner, Jim, found the cache at the top of the hill.
Apparently, it was a bit of climb.

Time to go home, with a stop for some cool refreshments.

Thanks to Bill and Sandy for driving.