Following up on a hike Calipidder did a couple weeks back, I hiked up the Monument Peak Trail on Saturday (words & pix here) to see if I could find any remnants of a fighter jet that crashed there 55 years ago (today’s the 55th anniversary of the crash). I did find a few. Turns out there’s sort of a mini-specialty called Wreck Chasing devoted to exploring plane crash sites. I must have the wreck-chaser gene because this is the second time I’ve gone out scouting for riveted scraps of aluminum (here’s the other one). Another popular Bay Area crash site accessible by hikers is in the Hayward Hills, where a DC6 crashed on approach to Oakland’s airport. At the very least, hiking to some of these sites can provide an appreciation for what rescuers went through. Though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it if you’ve got a long flight coming up.