[5] Trails reach Mission Peak from four staging areas: Stanford Avenue, Ohlone College, Sunol Regional Wilderness, and Ed R. Levin County Park.

Sculptor and park ranger Leonard Page along with a crew of six erected the iconic "Mission Peeker" on December 27, 1990.

Sealed inside the steel tube are a crystal with traditional cultural uses, an Ohlone charmstone replica, a bottle of 1990 zinfandel wine whose yeast overshoot represents world population trends, and five time capsules with articles and photographs.

The time capsules were intended to be opened in a century or more, after 2090, and focus on rainforest preservation, AIDS, and homelessness.

They offer images from popular culture of Bart Simpson, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons.

Though designed in 1988 as an "interpretive post", with sight tubes pointing to other Bay Area landmarks and cities, the "peeker" function has since been rendered archaic and its environmental message is not widely known.

[3] In 2014, iconoclastic local residents, the Recreation Department of the City of Fremont and the Stewardship Division of EBRPD discussed razing the landmark to dissuade sightseers.

[3][14] The city temporarily restricted visitor parking on streets near the Stanford Avenue trail-head in late 2016.

Residential permits are required on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays in front of houses, near open fields, and near empty lots.

The same law firm filed the 2016 action which closed the Regional Park at Vargas Plateau for nearly a year.

[19] The lawsuit, principally aimed at keeping park visitors out of the local residential neighborhood, was settled in late 2018.

The settlement removed legal obstacles that had stood in the way of the expansion, which was originally estimated to cost $6.5 million in 2016.

[21] Hikers can observe takeoffs from the launch point 1,950 ft (590 m) above sea level, marked by a large wind sock.

Landings occur adjacent to the main hiking trail about one quarter mile (400 m) from the Stanford Avenue entrance, near the proposed site of a parking lot expected in late 2018.

Bigleaf maples and gray pines are less common, though the old-growth oak forest in the Hidden Valley (see Hiking) known as A.A. Moore Memorial Grove contains all the tree species.

The steepest slopes are home to hard, evergreen chaparral, primarily California sagebrush, chamise, and scrub oak.

[24] Mission Peak has a large (300 m wide by 1200 m long) landslide that started in 1998 due to the El Niño rains.

[25] The landslide threatened new housing, and local development regulations were changed to address the geotechnical hazards.