It all started with a conversation with my ex-girlfriend that centered around trying to come up with an activity on St. Patrick's Day that did not involve alcohol.

A hotel room in Santa Cruz and a day hike of Mt. umunhum to cross off peak #2 of my challenge fell in our lap so we booked it.

Meanwhile COVID-19 was starting to intermingle itself among us and the shelter in place designation had reached Santa cruz already but not Sonoma where we live.

Between feeling like I was trying to out run the virus and the weather report calling for scattered showers there was no doubt St. Patrick's Day was gonna be a good day.

We hit the trail after sleeping in until 10 am and it was cold. Like really cold. Like cold cold.

The hike itself was nice and steady and the cool air actually felt really nice on the switchbacking trail once we got moving.

After we saw the two crashed VW Beetles off the trail I started making up all sorts of possible stories about why and how they landed there. Mostly involving drunk enlisted Air Force men in the 70's partying.

We ran into a very energetic couple running who informed us of a snowman at the top that would welcome us.

As we progressed upwards we found the snow and it got colder!

I was not expecting snow along with the scattered showers but at the end of trip the snow added a really cool element to the hike.

It never rained on us heading up but about 5 minutes after we traversed the steps and summitted Mt. Umunhum it started raining. We rushed our stay at the top eating under some trees and then I absorbed as much of the info panels as I could while I tried not to freeze!

The journey down started with snow pelting us. This continued for the first mile down. Looking out we could see the rain clouds coming towards us and where it was already raining. Once it stopped snowing we were hustling down with no feeling in our hands while listening and watching for the upcoming scattered shower.

After a little over 3 hours of hike time and 8.20 miles we arrived at the car and CRANKED the heater. The hike was awesome, the views were awesome and the fact that it rained and snowed made the hike that much more badass!!!