A friend and I set out early Saturday morning 2/20 to hike Mission Peak.  Neither one of us had done it before but really wanted to add it to the list because we are both experienced hikers in the bay area and beyond.

One thing I've certainly noticed – Mission Peak appears in a lot of dating app photos.  The iconic summit marker is something I had seen frequently and I was a little surprised when somebody told me it was right here in Fremont.  I don't know why but I just assumed it was somewhere in SoCal or something.   Happy to see it added to the NorCal 6-pack this year.

Okay, this hike is every bit as crowded as you hear.  There were a lot of people, big groups out there, a few trail runners, a few people on bikes.  A lot of casual hikers.

Cows on hills!  They get up there on the steep hills.  Some of the cows look pretty athletic and move well!  They seem maybe annoyed by the crowds.

On this day, there was quite a bit of cloud/fog cover and to the west you could see the sun and blue skies but to the east, the view was pretty well covered.  The best part of the hike was leaving the summit and coming around the backside of the mountain.  Didn't see many people on that side – just a few hikers ascending that side of the loop and missing the crowds.  My friend said it looked like the setting for Monty Python's Holy Grail.  It really did seem like that with pieces of clouds blowing by and random cows scattered across the landscape.  Just needed two halves of coconut to bang together.

I unfortunately had covid-19 at the end of January.  So I rested and recovered, got cleared by my doctor, and was eager to test the lungs.  I did pretty well.  First one down and 5 to go!