I’ve been wanting to do the Mission Peak hike in Fremont for a while now. I started out by reading the website at the East Bay Regional Parks and learned that it’s become a really popular hike recently. The Stanford Avenue staging area looked like it was going to be super crowded so I headed to the Ohlone College campus to start my hike.
There weren’t too many cars but I did pass a lot of people along the way. The hike is pretty much uphill the whole way and passes through a cow pasture and then a wooded area. And then it’s completely exposed and uphill some more. When I reached the intersection where the Stanford Avenue people were coming up, it got really busy. Lots of teenagers hiking to the top, how strange, I rarely see kids that young out hiking.
At the top of Mission Peak the views are amazing! 360 degree views of the bay and towards Mount Diablo and even as far as Mount Tamalpais. I was able to see San Francisco and Oakland from the top. And of course the peak is marked by an interesting marker. Well worth the hike to the top!
So, about the cows, I don’t like cows much. I think it goes back to when I once hiked with my German grandparents in the Swiss Alps. We were hiking through a pasture and there was a herd of cows, mean cows, and they chased us to the gate. I was so scared but my grandmother just laughed and laughed. I had another experience in Sunol a few years ago where the cows there mooed and chased me down the path.
The cows in Mission Peak park weren’t like that, they were mostly just lying in the shade next to the trail. But as I started hiking into the wooded area, there was a cow coming down the path towards me! We both stopped and looked at each other. I stepped way off to the side of the path and let her pass. But as I walked up the hill I noticed quite a few cows hanging out in the woods off the path munching on bushes. They all looked at me but allowed me to pass.
I also noticed that there were quite a few park rangers out there patrolling, and it was a Thursday. And firefighters were hanging out in the cow field with their truck, probably to keep an eye out for wildfires. So, I felt very safe hiking there.
So, here’s my questions, why are the cows in Sunol so mean and why are there so many high school kids hiking to the top of Mission Peak?
Start/end: Ohlone College parking lot
Trail name: Mission Peak trail
Approximate mileage: 6mi roundtrip
The post Mission Peak and Cows appeared first on Loving Life in Oakland CA.