Mission Peak

I’m in so much pain. No, this is not from eating. I went on my morning hike today! I’m so proud of myself (and my boyfriend). We wanted to see the sunrise on top of Mission Peak so we decided to do a morning hike. We woke up at 4:30am and it was cold as hell. We were trying to decide whether or not we should go because the bed was so warm and comfortable but we sucked it up and decided we gotta go. We left at 5am and got to Mission Peak in Fremont at 5:25. It was 50 degrees, which is FREEZING cold for me. Granted, anything under 70 degrees is extremely cold for me.

This was my first time at Mission Peak so I was reading the Yelp reviews last night about the hike up and I was getting nervous and scared. The hike up lasted from one and a half to two hours. Erryone warned about how strenuous and challenging the hike is. Boy was it strenuous. It was probably one of the more difficult hikes that I’ve done. I’m not a super avid hiker anymore but I consider myself “in shape.” It was literally all uphill, starting from the first step we took. I’m thankful I’m a semi-gym junkie.

It was pitch black, too. Luckily my boy is an avid hiker and he was super prepared. I felt so bad for him because he brought a backpack that was like 20lbs! He had lots of water, food (even though we didn’t eat it), flashlights, and his camera and tripod. I can’t believe he hiked uphill, and it was quite steep 50% of the time, with all that weight. I was already struggling and I only had my DSLR with me. 

It quickly got super hot and I wanted to take off all of my clothes (let’s be mature here). We were sweating balls (again, maturity). I can’t imagine doing the hike in the daytime with the sun beating down on you. There were a few people hiking in front of us, but other than that, it was just the two of us, some cows, and a whole lotta hills. 

When we finally reached the top, I was pleasantly surprised; it took us only a little over an hour. It was our first time hiking at Mission Peak and it was very dark and steep, so I felt uber proud of our hike. OMG it was so windy and cold at the top. I literally spent half of my time hiding behind a rock to block off the wind. I was freezing. My hands were hurting from the cold. Thank Buddha for my North Face jacket. I don’t know what I would do without it. Anyway, so we stayed for about 30min at the peak taking photos and then we hiked back down (I had to rush home because my brother was going back to SoCal today and I didn’t want to miss him). When we were going down we saw a hawk perched on a fence. I was trying to get fancy with my camera and take some good photos. I was happy with my photos today. My boyfriend took really nice photos too. I stole some of his pictures (scroll further down). 

The following are some of my fav photos that I took:

Look at that smexy photographer ;)

Setting up his tripod.

The sun starting to rise! Here’s the sequence of sunrise photos:

This is my boy’s favorite photo.

Cute!

The clouds looked like big fluffy pillows. You can see the shadow of the peak.

That’s the peak! The little speck on the top is a person.

Hawk alert!

This is my artsy photo.

The following are my boyfriend’s photos. They’re mostly of me (I’m not conceited). He took other ones but I got lazy and didn’t feel like uploading them anymore.

That’s the rock I hid behind. 

My favorite! You can see my boy’s shadow on me. He’s so cool.

So after our cold, vigorous, hot, and then cold again hike, I had to get my Costco pumpkin pie! And here it is, in all its glory! So beautiful. 

The water is precipitation. 

I ate almost 1/4 of it already. Don’t judge. It was delicious! It was also my boyfriend’s first ever pumpkin pie (he’s not a pie person). He really likes pie crusts and I love the filling. How perfect! Anyway, so now I’m ridiculously sore and everything hurts. I’m gonna really feel it tomorrow. But I’m proud of myself for getting out there in nature and in the wee hours of the cold morning to do a crazy hike. Now time for more pie.