It would probably have been easiest to drive to SF and seek out a parking spot for the
day, but since Jackie hadn't been on BART before, I thought it would be fun to park in
Daly City and take BART into downtown. Pete was arriving by bus from Sacramento around
10a and we planned to meet at a Starbucks on the corner of Embarcadero and Market at
10:30a. I worked our schedule backwards from there, leaving San Jose at 8a. But the
traffic on I-280 was much better than I anticipated and we were at the Colma BART station
in only 45 minutes (I somehow mistook the Colma station for the Daly City one, but it
mattered little). 
The station is 1960s futuristic, a bit outdated, but clean
and free of graffiti. The trains come through the station every ten minutes or so and we
didn't even have to 
wait a whole minute before getting on. The ride to the
Embarcadero station took less than 25 minutes and we were an hour ahead of schedule when
we arrived at 
our destination and rode 
the escalator up to street
level. In the middle of the financial district, there was the usual bustle of a busy
populace on a workday. We killed an hour by taking a small tour through the area, walking
out to the end of 
Pier 14 next to the 
Ferry Building and taking in
the 
city views under cloudy skies. We had enough time to get back to Starbucks
and have a peppermint hot chocolate before Pete arrived just ahead of schedule.
I must have done a good job of describing to Jackie what Pete looks like, because she picked him out from a distance when he walked into 1 Market Place. His camera held high in the air snapping pictures was a dead giveaway. Pete had warned me that he would probably take anywhere from 200-400 photos, plus video on our mini tour of the city which was fine by me since we weren't hiking very far. We shook hands and introduced ourselves and were quickly on our way. I'm not very familiar with San Francisco and can count the times I've been to the city on two hands even though I've lived in the Bay Area for more than half my life. The truth is the place scares me a little - too many people crammed into small spaces just doesn't suit a soul that savors open spaces and solitude. I had looked at maps beforehand only to roughly guage where the four summits were that we planned to visit. Pete had given a fairly detailed description of our route in one email, so I figured I could just let him guide us through the city, which is what I proposed as we started walking. Pete modestly claimed to know less than I would as a "native", but I quickly dispelled that idea. He had been here many, many times and would do just fine.
Our tour took in many of the notable sections of the City, including the Financial
District, the Italian North Beach, the strip clubs along Broadway, the lively characters
in the Tenderloin and 
elsewhere. To no great surprise, Jackie kept to the side,
avoiding
conversation with either of us, whispering in my ear if she had a question and generally
playing the invisible teenager during our walk. Far more a conversationalist than myself,
Pete did most of the talking, whether describing old adventures in the City, potential
lunch spots, historical curiosities, 
photo ops or the nefarious Sierra Club.
The latter was never
far from his thoughts which I more or less expected since peakbagging was what we shared
in common, not a taste for fine dining. He talked in a quiet voice which I found
difficult to follow at times amid the city noises. I would ask him to repeat himself if
it was something key to a point he was making or I was trying to understand, but it would
have seemed rude to ask him to do so repeatedly and I had to let much of it go by
uncomprehended.
The summits we visited were mostly unremarkable, not surprising since they were among the
lowest in the city. We first visited 
Telegraph Hill upon which sits the famous
Coit Tower, erected during the depression using socialite Lillie Hitchcock
Coit's bequest following her death. The tower, nearly as tall as the hill itself, was
closed for remodeling and the best we could do was to visit the 
parking lot on
the north side. Pete described what seemed like bizarre summiting rules used by the
Sierra Club back in the day, requiring one to climb any building or tree atop a summit
to "claim" it. I had never heard of such a rule though I freely admit to enjoying a
climb of more than one summit tower in my time, but never had I considered climbing a
tree. Pete had his own rule requiring circumnavigation of any fenced summit so we did
this to keep things copesetic. We set up a self-timer to take 
a photo of the
three of us near the 
PLAZA benchmark, the only group photo we took on the day.
After circling the fenced area, we headed west for 
Russian Hill, passing by
Saints Peter and Paul 
Catholic Church among other landmarks. We paused at
the base of Lombard Street to take a few photos with the other tourists who
were milling about or driving down the "
Crookedest Street in the World." We
hiked to the top where 
Stirling Park is found atop the north summit
of Russian Hill. 
The top has been bulldozed about as flat as possible to
accomodate tennis and handball courts. We rested here on a bench, having a snack we'd
brought in our pack with us. Pete had brought no water or food with him, preferring to
patronize the local businesses along the way. I offered him one of the Gatorades we had
with us, but he chose to wait for a store where he could purchase a Diet Coke. There are
two summits to Russian Hill and it's not clear from the topo map which is the highest,
but my GPS was showing the southern one as the highpoint. So we next
headed southeast, finding a 
cul-de-sac near the corner of Jones and
Vallejo Streets that appeared to be the highest. 
The homes surrounding it
looked well cared for, a fine neighborhood with nicely manicured streets. An exceedingly
small park is found at the end of the cul-de-sac where a gardener was busy
tiding up the already tidy area. The only view from the street level is towards
the southeast where one can see the Bay Bridge and Financial District.
We continued south off Russian Hill, stopping at 
a corner market where Pete
was able to slake his thirst with a Diet Coke. Here we took a longer break of 20 minutes
or so, chatting about
peakbaggers we knew in common. Very few have actually hiked with both of us, Adam Jantz
being the only one that comes to mind, but I recognized many of the old-timer names that
Pete had hiked with in the Sierra Club from their entries in summit registers and online
TRs. We continued south on 
Jones St. to the top of Nob Hill less a third of a
mile away. 
The highpoint here seemed more obvious, at the intersection of Jones
and Sacramento. The 
Grace Cathedral happens to lie at the southeast corner of
this junction, with its 
French Gothic architecture, complete with
gargoyles watching from the tallest spire. We
continued south on Jones street, strolling through the Tenderloin where homelessness
intermixes with joints being openly passed around and 24oz beer can without the bother of
a paper bag. The eccentric characters who populated the area were as much a product of
their surroundings as a cause of their existence. I asked my daughter if she felt
uncomfortable to which she replied "No, not really" though I know only a year ago I would
have gotten a different answer. She's getting more used to the wide spectrum that makes
up the human populace.
It was 1p by the time we passed the 
trolley turnaround on Powell Street,
watching the
workers manually turn a car at the end of the line and get it going in the opposite
direction. For some time now Pete had been dropping not-so-subtle hints about lunch at
various locations, hoping perhaps that something would grab my attention and I'd show
some enthusiasm. The truth is, eating isn't one of my favorite ways to spend time, so I
didn't really care whether we had lunch or not. When Pete asked if I liked dim sum, I
replied "No, not really, but I enjoy Chinese, Thai and Indian food," thinking I might
steer him in one of those related directions. But Pete had his eye on dim sum at the
Yank Sing
restaurant, a place he had tried twice before to visit but had found closed. He said it
was given a 5-star rating by Yelp which was as good as it could get, it seemed. So dim
sum it was, and delicious, too. Pete picked out a few items from the cart and I picked
out a few others. It wasn't a gorge-fest by any means, but a light and satisfying meal.
Pete arranged the selections on his plate, topped them with appropriate sauces for taste
and presentation, then took a few photos of his meal as has become his habit. Always
after the meta photo, I took one of Pete photographing his plate, which seemed to
startle him a bit.
But he was a good sport and didn't give me a hard time for it.
After lunch we headed towards the 
Bay Bridge in search of Rincon Hill. We found
what appears to be 
the highpoint
at the south end of 1st Street at 1 Rincon Hill. We took a
few photos and returned to the Embaradero BART station not long after 2:30p. I had told
Pete I had to leave some time around 3-4p in order to get back for a Scout meeting that
same evening, so we bid goodbye a little early and left Pete to enjoy his remaining time
in the city by himself (his bus didn't leave until 7p). I bought Jackie a Frappuccino at
the Starbucks before boarding the train, a reward for being a good sport in following
Pete and I around all day. She even admitted to enjoying herself some, not easy to do
when you're accompanying a couple of old peakbaggers around San Francisco...