by Ian Edlind

Just one week removed from an ascent of South Lake Tahoe’s Mt. Tallac, my brother and I opted for a less hardcore but infinitely more social (conversation is sparse when you’re gasping for air at 9,700 feet) hiking experience in the City by the Bay. Our guide was Jareau Wade, host of “Getting High in San Francisco” – a three hour ode to the hill-top high points of central San Francisco. It was a sunny, 75-degree Oakland Sunday morning when Jareau texted, “Make sure you dress for wind”. We heeded the warning – when it comes to weather, all bets are off across the bridge.

As we power-walked up Bernal Heights, Jareau, a Business Development lead at an Internet start-up, came clean with his intentions. Vayable uses his company’s payment system; guiding was an opportunity to “test” it from the payee’s stand-point. Working on weekends…this guy deserves a raise!

On this particular morning, San Francisco shared in the East Bay’s sunny fortunes and Bernal Heights Park was poppin’ with joggers, dog walkers, and families taking in the views.

With one peak down, we hopped in his car, traversed Noe Valley and joined the weekend warriors on Twin Peaks. Not content for parking lot views, we skipped over to the twins, North Summit and South Summit. A three hundred sixty degree panorama awaited: San Francisco, the Bay, Golden Gate, and a even a tiny sliver of ocean (cloudless days only), all within our sights. Sufficiently mesmerized, we lingered on the summit as the wind whipped by us like a Lincecum fastball.

Back at sea level (and now approaching lunch time), Jareau treated my brother and I to milkshakes at Super Duper in the Castro. I’ll take the organic chocolate/strawberry flavor, please! Consider it the cherry on top of a rock-solid morning.

Ian Edlind is a newcomer to the San Francisco Bay Area scene after a five-year stint in the Nation’s Capital. Now living in Berkeley, Ian fills his free time with local novelties, both large and small, including funky NorCal wineries, East Bay hill-scrambles, and winter-time outdoor pool swims (a bona fide “pinch me” moment for a Philadelphia native). Partial to outdoor adventure, Ian has parlayed his passion into a writing gig with Weekend Sherpa, a Bay Area outdoors newsletter. Because only in the name of journalistic integrity, would any sane person riverboard the South Fork American River.