What a difference a little conditioning makes. On our previous visit to Cerro Alto in November 2011, we had been very much challenged by the steepness of the trail – at an average gradient of 800’/mile, it has been the standard against which all our subsequent hikes have been measured (i.e., “How steep is this trail in relation to Cerro Alto?”). Back in Pismo for the weekend, we thought it was time to revisit Cerro Alto. The plan was to repeat the hike to the summit, then proceed south to the West Cuesta Ridge road and follow it three miles east to Tassajera Peak, a prominent mountain atop which are situated a large collection of TV and radio towers, then return to the Cerro Alto trailhead to complete the ~10-mile round trip. In typical fashion, we started a little late and didn’t arrive at the Cerro Alto campground until nearly 10am – after paying our day use fee, we left the parking lot a few minutes later. The trail ascends steeply from the start, reaching a level traverse before crossing a jeep road that allows maintenance of a telecommunications cable about a mile in – from there, the trail resumes its grade, reaching the Cerro Alto summit about another mile later. The trail’s steepness wound up being a non-factor for us – what was uber-challenging 18 months ago was simply a good workout this time around. What was more than a little freaky for us was the poison oak we found everywhere we looked. Oblivious for so long to its presence, it seems we are now ultrasensitive, and Chris especially is less than comfortable whenever we encounter it. The northern slopes of Cerro Alto are covered in poison oak, as it appears to wholly constitute the brushy understory on the entire mountain – still, it was cut back in most places well away from the trail, and we don’t think we made any physical contact with it. We made excellent time up the trail, reaching the Cerro Alto summit in just 61 minutes. The views were better than what we remembered, and the stiff breeze was just the right relief on a warm day without making us cold. While Tassajera Peak beckoned to the east, we decided on a change of plans for the day – Chris had previosuly suggested that it might be fun to summit all the publicly-accessible morros in one day (a 13+-mile effort) and, though we had already committed to the 4 miles to Cerro Alto, we decided to try to do the five accessible morros plus Cerro Alto over two days. So, back down the trail we went, intending to drive back to San Luis Obispo for a shot at Bishop Peak and Islay Hill, saving the remaining three summits (Cerro San Luis, Cerro Cabrillo, and Black Hill) for Saturday. The Bishop Peak trailhead was crowded to say the least. It was shortly after noon by this point, but we decided to delay eating lunch until we found a shady spot along the trail. Here again, immense amounts of poison oak around the base of the mountain prompted us to postpone eating until we reached the summit boulders. It was very warm and the air was quite still as we ascended the north and east slopes, but the breeze picked up as we gained the switchbacks on Bishop’s south face. We passed several groups of young people on the way, and it felt pretty good to crank through this section in better shape than people less than half our age. Reaching the summit ridge, we decided to climb the adjacent East Summit rocks rather than the taller Middle Summit (the poison oak thing again, as we recalled what a bushwhack it had been to reach the Middle Summit the last time we were here), and we quickly scrambled up the short but fun route to the eastern high point. The view was fantastic, and we spent about 20 minutes here as we ate our lunch and soaked up both the sun and the breeze. As we headed down, we thought that the 7-1/2 cumulative miles to this point might be enough for one day (we had already had some 2,550′ of elevation gain/loss), by the time we got to the car we had decided to go ahead and push through with Islay Hill to finish the day, which would add another 1.8 miles and 550′ to the day’s totals. This was by far the easiest segment of the trip, and the only real notable incident was encountering a troop of Brownies working on their hiking badge – we met them less than 1/2-mile in, clustered atop a small rock alongside the trail, some of them disappointed to learn that their leaders were not taking them all the way to the top (others seemed quite relieved). Having been here twice before, it was all familiar ground, the only surprise being the clusters of poison oak at the summit – we had been so clueless on our previous visits. It felt good to get out of our boots once we returned to the car (again passing the Brownies at the bottom of the trail), and we went the back way through Edna Valley and down Price Canyon to Pismo, where warm showers and a well-earned steak dinner awaited us.