Chris’ cousin Cynthia had some business in Alta Sierra, so it worked out for us to give her a ride and for her to join us for a quick hike up nearby Sunday Peak. The 8,300′ peak lies at the southern end of the Great Western Divide northeast of Glennville and northwest of Lake Isabella, and its trailhead at 7,200′ lies about 30 minutes of dirt road driving north of Greenhorn Summit and Alta Sierra – this would be our fourth trip up, having done it twice when the kids were small and a third time on the inaugural Excellent Adventure in 2009. We picked up Cynthia about 8am and made it to the trailhead a little before 10, rewarded with a nice breeze and perfectly cloudless skies. The short 1.8-mile trail climbs steeply for the first few hundred yards but then eases to a more gentle grade as it trends south and west to Water Gap, a shallow pass north of the peak, which it reaches about a mile from the trailhead. From the gap, the trail heads south to Telephone Ridge (named for the communication cable that used to run up the ridge from Glennville to the fire lookout on the summit – that post was abandoned and demolished in the 1950s), where it turns abruptly east, climbing into a small swale before looping north and east to the rocky summit. Our CRV was the only vehicle at the trailhead, so we didn’t expect to have much company – we had the trail to ourselves, and we quickly made it up to the gap, periodically pausing for Cynthia to catch up. We wanted to hike from here more as a unit since we didn’t want anyone to miss the turn at Telephone Ridge – one of our group had done just that on our last trip here, and Jane had had to backtrack down the mountain to find them. However, once we made it to that point, we found the junction well-marked with both a cairn and directional signs on a tree. We rested here for a bit and then made the push up the final half mile to the summit – the views west to the valley were pretty hazy, but north, east, and south were crystal clear. We could easily pick out the major peaks of the High Sierra, the Sierra Crest above Walker Pass (which we hiked through a few weeks back), the Paiutes and Breckenridge Mountain to the south – we could even see the Mt. Pinos area south of Bakersfield where we have spent so much time in recent weeks. We could not have asked for better weather, and we spent about 30 minutes on the summit taking in the sun and the views. The trip back was uneventful, with the exception of meeting a solo mountain biker on his way up not long after we left the summit – he passed us again about a quarter mile from the trailhead. Despite being well past noon, there was still lots of shade on the east slope of Portuguese Peak across which the trail traverses, and the temperature never really got much beyond mild. Although a familiar hike for us, the terrain, the views, and the proximity of the trail make it a great option when we’re looking for something quick yet interesting.