So it had been a while since I've done any serious hiking and I figured I would start off a little easy in order to break my feet in, which had admittedly become a little soft due to quarantine laziness.  Umunhum seemed like a reasonable start to the NorCal challenge at 7.2 miles, but “everyone has a great plan until they get punched in the mouth”.

Guy whose job it is to open up the gate at the Mt.Umunhum Rd/Hicks Rd intersection decided to sleep in on Saturday and despite the website and signage saying it would be open at 7am, it was still closed at 8, so I left my car at the Woods Road entrance and decided to just hike the additional 2.8 miles up to the Mt. Umunhum trailhead (near the Bald Mountain trailhead).

Overall the weather was nice, the summit was a great view and the trail was amazingly well kept (i don't think I saw a single piece of trash, didn't have to use my garbage bag once).  Had a close call with an absolute unit of a rattlesnake sunning himself next to the trail on the descent, but he politely gave me a couple stern shakes of his tail to warn me off rather than murdering me straight out, which was appreciated.

When I got to the summit, all the cars in the parking lot suggested that someone eventually rolled out of bed and opened the gate to Umunhum road, so rather than get splattered by a vehicle and/or cyclists, I decided to take Barlow/Woods trails back to Hicks road, which gave me a bonus 5 miles.

Totaled the day at 14 miles, which was a bit more than I anticipated, but luckily my feet held out, with only a couple minor blisters, which was great.  Liberal application of friction cream at the start and halfway through probably helped minimize damage.

Reward for this excursion was an order of amazing szechuan dandan noodles.

Looking forward to either Mt. Diablo or Mission Peak next week for #2!