A blustery night’s Mission
To hustle up the slopes of Mission Peak is to forsake much. To simply put one’s foot in front of the other is mission enough.
Last night was exciting, almost intoxicating. I got together about 7 p.m. with 17 other outdoorsy folks and proceeded to climb the daunting and darkening slopes of a Bay Area beacon.
On any given day, the trail to the 2,517-foot summit of Mission Peak, which dominates the southeast San Francisco Bay town of Fremont, can be a tough, steep slog. When too-cool Spring winds are whipping your ears red, the clouds are low and brooding, and the dusk is rapidly descending, climbing this striking mountain can take on added, and foreboding, dimensions. Especially on the way back down. Most especially in the dark.
As I mentioned, the night was exciting. In the quickly waning light of the climb, huffing and puffing and not capable of ascending the mountain’s steep flanks very quickly, we chanced to turn a blind corner only to face a small herd of wide-eyed steers on the trail, right there before us. After a moment of bovine disbelief, the herd’s alpha male grudgingly allowed us to pass, face quizzical, as if we two-legged varmints were truly the stupid mammals in the area. Perhaps we were. After all, we were the ones climbing this notorious mountain; we understand the concept of because it’s there. Unlike these steers, of course - critters who have the more singular purpose of chewing, always chewing, to effectually maintain the contours of these nicely-carpeted East Bay hillsides - but don’t walk inside your mother’s house with those cattle-country boots. Little did these burly bovines understand, nor care, that we hoomin’ bein’s would never be so patient as to try to attain the summit walking as they do - always a kind of sideways.
(However, this particular winehikin’ varmint always saves the sideways stuff for after the hike, as per usual. Gotta earn it! Heck, it’s just good winehiking ethics.)
It had been many months since I had experienced a night hike. Even then, that last one, above the ‘burbs of Redwood City, wasn’t strictly a wilderness hike, but rather an urban one. Or sub-urban. Suffice to say that a Mission Peak night hike, with the sun first setting on its grassy Spring-green slopes and later with its commanding view of the bay and surrounding communities shimmering below, is truly an experience to behold.
Every local hiker must make it a mission to climb Mission Peak at least once, even at night.
I wanted to stay atop the peak awhile and drink in the night-time view, my first from this perch. But keeping your footing on jumbled outcrop in the face of knife-wielding 60-mph winds does not make drinking anything easy, except for traildust. Besides, it was too chilly to stop for long; keeping our momentum was what would keep us warm.
And so, after only a moment at the summit, our intrepid group descended the Horse Heaven Trail, headlamps glowing, to complete the return leg of our loop. And soon, as is the natural way of things that might occur when it’s dark, the group became separated!
A few of the speedier folks had vanished off the front while the rest of us were carefully picking our way along the dim narrow trail. I had been aware of a fork in the trail that we would approach somewhere ahead, and I was becoming pretty sure that the lead group had missed it. Periodically I could see their headlamps bobbing along the slope ahead, at a level about even with us. And yet they should have been heading downslope by now. All the while I had this insidious fractured Hollywood tune, by way of Kansas, playing in my head:
Follow the narrow dim trail!
Follow the narrow dim trail!
Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the narrow dim trail!
It truly was a dim and narrow trail, and not one this particular scarecrow would be skipping merrily upon, legs akimbo, heart at ease. And yet there were two people in our follow group walking a short way ahead of me when I spied a defile below us that represented what must be the right fork we were searching for. We had all passed it, but not by much. I couldn’t see this other trail, particularly, but over the years I’ve gained a sort of sixth sense about these things, and even at night, reading trail is something I find I do subconsciously. It was my guess that we had ventured about 20 feet beyond the narrow, unseen fork. I called attention to the trail’s probable presence, and we stopped as a group, turned around and, pacing back a few steps, found the fork, off to the right, and pointing slightly downhill. It was a narrow cow trail, but judging from its seasoned human use, it was the trail we wanted.
“Wow, Russ, good eye!” remarked one hiker.
“Ho-ho! We’re gonna beat those other guys back to the trailhead!” mused another.
Ah, sweet alacrity! And so we tromped the remainder of our way down the mountain, serenaded by twinkling bay views, whistling grasses, and tree frogs in the swales. By the time our narrow trail reached a junction with the main jeep road, well below, we were only minutes ahead of the former lead group. We stopped and waited, now in the trees and well-sheltered from the night’s winds. After regrouping, we found ourselves on relatively wide and flat terrain, only a short distance from where we had begun our night’s whimsy.
Ours was a strong and spirited group of hikers, many of whom had never climbed Mission Peak, much less experienced a night hike. Yet it seemed rather evident that everyone really enjoyed themselves despite threatening weather, darkness, and unseen trails. Upon arriving home, I saluted them all, silently, with an earthy, full-bodied ‘03 Hall Ranch Meritage, a Bordeaux-style blend from Robert Hall Winery, which carried the evening to a proper close. The night’s mission was a memorable one, and many of us, not the least of whom is this winehiker, are set to do it again soon.
