Las Trampas

I spent an afternoon caching in Las Trampas regional park. This time I had a print out of cache locations on a calibrated map I had made. This made it easy to choose the best trails.

The first one was Live Oak Stumper, which turned out to be pretty quick. Found at 2:01 PM.

Moving on up the trail along the creek I came to Stumped?. This one just about had me stumped. I was getting ready to call it off when I looked in one more spot. Found at 2:41 PM.

Then I began the long climb up to Three Peaks--Las Trampas Peak and made the easy find at 3:18 PM. What an incredible view, especially on a clear day like today.

Just a bit further was Resurrection of Pokey, another easy find at 3:34 PM.

Total hiking distance was about 3.5 miles. On the way back I stopped across Crow Canyon Blvd (south side) to look for two new caches. There is an obscure trail head and even more obscure trail. Is Anybody Home? was in and around a very muddy spot, but once I navigated the mud I found it quickly at 4:57 PM.

Further up this same trail is County Line. Unfortunately, I had only loaded this one into Cachemate and for some reason the Cachemate record was messed up so that I only knew N37° 45.910. So I hiked off that way (the trail pretty much constrains your E/W coords) and when I got close started checking likely looking spots. It didn’t take too long, and good thing, the sun was setting at 5:13 PM.

Once I was back going east on 580, I just kept going to find Halbert’s Altamont, which was actually a quick drive-up find at 5:55 PM.

Before going home I did a flashlight search for Frick N’ End, but it still eludes me. I must just be blind to this one.

Mostly Fremont

I had this Saturday free, so I headed off to Fremont through Niles Canyon. I made my first caching stop in Sunol for Sunol, a multi-cache. The first phase of the multi is gathering information from a historical marker about Sunol. The coordinates of the actual cache can be determined from numbers on the plaque.

These derived coordinates led to a close by location. As I was searching, rail fans were unloading their self-powered maintenance rail cars. I saw them zipping on the tracks as I was caching later in Fremont (there must have been a dozen or more). I made the find at 8:35 AM.

Continuing on through Niles Canyon on Highway 84, and then staying on 84 in Fremont, I came to 1.23 Miles. I found this one at 9:01 AM.

After this I went looking for BART View. Unfortunately, I can’t remember if I found it. In any event, I did not record it in Cache Mate. I’ll have to return for another try.

I returned to Highway 84 and found F.A.M.E Event Reminder--94536 at 10:04 AM. It was a quick find.

After some searching in the Niles District, I backtracked to the park areas on Niles Canyon Road. I was going to hunt for Happy 35th Birthday, but the park was full of folk in full historical Scottish garb, all gathered right where it seemed the GPSr was pointing. So, I went across the street and looked for Happy Birthday JoeSpaz #27. Even using clue, I couldn’t find it (and it hasn’t been found since November 28. Gave up and began looking for SuperGenius #20--More Niles Canyon which I found at 11:29 AM.

Niles Community Park is not too far away (a few blocks south of Niles Blvd.). After a walk around one of the ponds, I found SciFi Kids at 12:31 PM. There was quite a bit of tree cover. I also looked briefly for CITO Cache--Fremont #3 in the same park, but there were too many muggles in the area.

Niles Depot cache is at the old Niles Depot which is now used by a model train club. The cache is right in the front, just off Mission Blvd. Since no one was around the depot today, it was not very hard to find, which I did at 12:45 PM.

I did a cursory look for Harmony of Shapes, but it was too busy for me, and the logs indicate it’s a hard one.

There is a cluster of caches around the Isherwood Staging Area (trail access to the Alameda Creek Trail). I found Isherwood Staging Area cache at 1:22 PM.

Just a little ways further on the trail is ISHERWOOD IF YA WOULD, found at 1:34 PM.

Leash Required is also along the Alameda Creek Trail. Rather a hum drum location between the creek canal and a busy road. Found at 1:54 PM.

I searched for a couple of the Happy Birthday JoeSpaz caches without any luck. Given where I think they were probably hidden, I don’t care for them. But, I’ll probably try to find them on another day.

I drove home from Fremont through Hayward and didn’t know the quick way to get up to the college, so I wandered around on the Hayward streets for too long. Finally got up and went hunting for Greenbelt Trail Cache. There was so much tree cover that I lost GPS reception and had to backtrack to a clearing. Even so, I only got 200 ft accuracy. I used the hint and found it at 3:18 PM.

I drove back to 580 on Five Canyons Parkway and stopped to look again for The 2 Lit’l Ps: Homer’s Major League Adventure. No luck. It’s a hard one.

I also looked for quite a while for Water Fall--NO PARKING! No luck.

On the way home I drove up the hill for Take a Picture. The little park was crawling with kids and parents, but up the little trail just a couple of hundred feet and no one was visible. Found the cache in short order. None of the pictures interested me.

Pole Position (Karenina)

Pole Position (Karenina) is a puzzle cache that depends on getting numeric information from the Tolstoy novel Anna Karenina. It also requires info from 3 signs on poles (hence Pole Position) in Sycamore Grove park. I suppose it’s designed so that you can complete it with one visit to the park--get the sign information, do the arithmetic, and find the cache. I didn’t do it that way. The park is so close I ran out the other day and got the sign information.

I would never have attempted this puzzle if I actually had to read the whole novel to find the answers. Google is a marvelous tool, especially since the whole novel is available on-line, and thus completely indexed.

However, I couldn’t get my answers to correspond with the given check formula: XXX + YYY = 1305. Then I realized this formula defines a linear path from N37° 38.999 W121° 46.306 to N37° 38.306 W121° 46.999. Of course, information in the previous logs helps reduce the path length to a very manageable amount.

So I used the GPSr to find coordinates that were on that linear path in the target area, and established a track heading, and searched likely hiding places. Like others, I started on the wrong side of the creek, but after getting to the right side, I found it fairly quickly.

I also did complete the puzzle. Actually, I had the right information from the novel all along; I just didn’t carefully follow the directions about how many digits of a multi-digit number to use.

Las Trampas Hike

Karen and I spent the afternoon hiking in Las Trampas, and grabbing some caches as the trail came near one. It had to be pot luck like this, because I didn’t know which trail to take to get to specific caches. I remedied that this evening by calibrating a Las Trampas map, so the next time I go, I will know the location of the caches relative to the trails.

We started climbing steeply on the Rocky Ridge road, and then taking the Cuesta Trail. As we neared One Third Remaining, we followed a use trail down the hill a bit. This was a pill bottle micro hidden in a grove of trees. The GPSr worked pretty well, and we got to a very likely location, but recent storms had made a jumble of the area. There was a lot of fresh, big limbs that had broken off. We searched for a while fruitlessly until I just happened to look under one of the blown down limbs and the cache was just lying on the ground. Interestingly, the last couple of logs also indicated that the cache had been blown by wind or pushed by critter out of its hiding place (not that where it was wasn’t reasonable). I put it back in a more hidden place, but now realize that it probably didn’t correspond to the clue.

Then we just continued on down the hill to Elderberry trail and picked up Elderberry Ramble. Karen spotted this one as I was just about standing on top of it.

Continuing on the same trail about another 1/4 mile we came to MT Cache. This one gave me fits because of the deep tree cover. We both searched all around for a frustratingly long time. Karen was remarkably patient. For the last 10 minutes of the hunt I had set the GPSr down on a log. When I gave up, I looked at the reading as I picked of the GPSr, and it said 40 ft back up the hill. I just commented that it sure was bouncing around, but as we walked out that general direction I just happened to spot the cache.

Event, CVC comes to Alamo

A number of CVC cachers decided to come to Alamo to hunt the Wait Until Dark cache. Dan and I decided to go along, even though we had just done it, in order to get acquainted with some fellow cachers. Then, Team Alamo organized a pizza get together afterward, and a lot more Bay Area cachers decided to come.

I hike back up to the cache was interesting. It was foggy, the flashlight beams were clearly visible, just like in spooky movies, and the fire tacks were a little harder to see. There were far more people than I expected. I’m glad we had done it with just 3 of us. There was such a strung out line of people that you could just follow voices and flashlights and find the cache.

One interesting effect was that about 3/4 of the way there we spotted critter eyes off the trail, and then a big cat’s face and audible growls. The only problem was, it didn’t move or blink. A good prank, it caused us to do a double take for a few seconds. Some of the folks coming up didn’t even see it or hear it--making too much noise themselves.

We got to meet (and put faces with) Walruz, Jimswim, DavidT21, Team Alamo, Bill of Green Achers, $ATM$, Camel680, CAhikers2x2, and others I can’t remember. Also of interest, I talked for a while with Norm Stout (father of a cacher), a retired LLNL chemist and we had some common work acquaintances, although we had never crossed paths at the Lab.

0.200K

Found Altamont N’ Vasco after delivering a table to Dan this evening. Surprisingly quick with a flashlight. I’m surprised I didn’t see it a couple of days ago during the day. Anyway, it’s a small step toward more.

Hayward hunt

I did some hunting in the Hayward Hills today. I started with Dear Trail Boogee, parking at a park on Five Canyons Parkway. This was not the recommend access point, but while the hill down to the cache was steep, it wasn’t really difficult. The weeds and brush got a little thick at the end. I found, and retrieved, a basketball which had rolled a couple of hundred yards down the hill from the park, and then found the cache.

I drove over to Oakes Drive off of Fairview and parked at a trail access point. I looked for Oak View but did not find it. After getting back and reading the logs, I believe the coordinates are slightly off, and the hint is misleading.

From the same parking place I dropped down into the other side of the ridge from Oak View. Passed a pretty tame deer that seemed to be inside somebody’s deer fence. I was looking for Hey Weird, and it seemed like it’s almost in a back yard. There are no fences because it does drop off rather steeply into the canyon. Luckily I found it fairly quickly and got out of there.

Getting back to the pickup, I realized Woodlands was within 100 feet, so I quickly grabbed it.

Then I drove down to near Cal State and looked for a reasonable place to park. Missed a good spot, got on a busy road, and when I turned off to turn around got onto a one-way street that took me for quite a journey. Finally got back, parked, and began looking for The Stinker. Didn’t take long, which is good, because it’s right near a busy road.

Trees, Trees, Trees - Ward #3 was just up the canyon a bit. The GPSr was off a little because of tree cover, but by looking in likely spots, it was pretty easy to find.

A little farther up the trail, I came to Across the Creek & Thru the Woods. I completely lost the GPSr as I approached this one. I backed out, got a bearing on it, and just starting looking in good spots. Didn’t take long to find.

Cache hunting holiday

After getting some small jobs done at home, I decided to look for some caches somewhere--anywhere. Wasn’t sure where, but decided to start in Livermore.

First I found Wood N’ Red at 1121 hrs. With no baseball practice today, it was fairly easy.

I failed again to find Frickin’ End, but I looked for quite a while. Then I tried to find Altamont N’ Vasco. Vasco was so busy I just didn’t want to search where the GPSr pointed. This might be one for a night hunt (discreetly though).

I noticed this morning that Passarella Iliaca (Pleasanton, CA) had been replaced yesterday. Both Dan and I had tried to find this one several times, but we were convinced it was missing. Apparently, it was. It still wasn’t quick to find, but I got it at 1312 hrs.

As I drove by Lions--It’s Free, I noticed the surrounding area was free of muggles--a condition I had not often found. I took advantage of it, and found it fairly quickly at 1321 hrs.

From there, I drove over to the Senior Center and noticed that it was deserted today, so I wandered around gathering the info needed to solve A Senior Moment multi-cache. My derived coordinates gave me a quarter mile hike to an interesting structure where I had to search for a while before finding it at 1415 hrs.

I had searched for Retirement at the Senior Center before, but didn’t want to make the search because there were so many people there. Today, it was easy, although I had forgotten my solved coordinates and had to resolve everthing again. Found at 1422 hrs.

Although Karen and I had just been to Val Vista park yesterday, I didn’t try to solve Viva Val Vista multi-cache. Even though there was a large crowd of skate-boarders and BMXers, I was able to gather the info required, go to another part of the park, and make the find at 1515 hrs.

I checked the water flow for TNLN I Don’t Think So #2 and it seemed very reasonable today--down quite a lot from last Saturday when I didn’t want to go with Dan. Almost fell on my rear at a slippery spot, but found the cache and made the exchange of a stuffed creature. I took Blue’s Clues and left a talking thing that says, "Now you see me; now you don’t."

Yesterday, Karen and I had looked for TNLN I Don’t Think So #1. We didn’t find it, but after looking for just a short time a couple showed up taking pictures of each other right in the search area. Today, I didn’t have that problem and after a bit more looking, found the cache at 1613 hrs. I took a 1984 nickel and left a 1985 nickel.

Afternoon hunt with Geodanimal

Dan, Janet, and I had about 3 hours this afternoon to look for some caches, so the first one we tackled was Beneath, Between, and Behind. I had solved this puzzle cache a couple of weeks ago (right after Christmas), and Dan did just recently. I had been to the location a couple of times and decided I didn’t want to try the retrieval I thought was necessary. It turns out I only checked with the GPSr once, and I was not in the right location. After some discussion, we got that straightened out and moved to the other side of the creek. Dan took a short-cut, and by the time we got there, he had retrieved the cache.

From there, we looked at TNLN, I Don’t Think So #2, but I thought there was still too much water to make the attempt. The description does say don’t attempt soon after a storm.

But, staying in the same genre, we went a ways further and hunted TNLN, I Don’t Think So #4. While Dan and Janet tried one approach, I tried a completely different one, and came up with the cache.

There were some other caches in the area, but I wanted to try some in San Ramon. Our first attempt there was Arch You Glad You’re Married. There was a lot of activity going on (maybe getting ready for a wedding or banquet) so we left after some cursory looking. A fairly short walk brought us to Bring Your Baseball Cap. The grass fields were so wet that they were marked closed, and no one was around. I found the cache in a spot where Dan had already checked.

Barrel of Monkeys, on the Iron Horse Trail, was just a quarter mile away. This one was well camoflaged, but the general location was clear. With three of us looking, it was just a matter of time. Janet spotted it.

From here, it was a short drive over to the San Ramon Medical Center, where we had to climb a short, but steep hill side. Again, the general area was very clear, and we let Dan do the dirty work.

Trust Me--belated (Tracy, CA)

Green Achers emailed today urging me to log a find on Trust Me. Back in November I went there twice and emailed him about where I looked. He concluded I looked in the right place and the cache was gone. I kept waiting for him to replace it, but he has decided to archive it instead. It was a magnetic micro in a truss of a shade structure along the California Aqueduct.

Outing to Murphys

Karen wanted to drive up to Murphys today for some window shopping, have lunch, and then tromp around on our property in Copperopolis. I figured there must be some quick, easy-to-find caches on the way.

We stopped for coffee at Starbucks at the intersection of Highways 4 and 49. I turned on the GPSr and there was a cache 0.1 miles away (the Altaville Schoolhouse). We went, but I hate this kind of cache. It seemed like we’d be poking around right on someone’s doorstep (not really, but I just don’t like looking in these kind of locations).

On the way out of Angels Camp towards Murphys we stopped for Angels Camp. Dan told me about this one being a quick find just off the road, and it was. There was a deer skull with antlers nearby, and I wanted to log something about the horns of a dilemma, but couldn’t think of anything that made sense.

We walked around quite a bit in Murphys and ate in a nice little cafe. I didn’t turn on the GPSr until we were leaving and then saw there was a cache right in the local park. Well, there’ll be another time.

After we’d checked out our Copperopolis property (unfortunately, we lost about half a dozen trees in the recent storms--one of them a 3 ft diameter Oak), I checked the GPSr and noticed a cluster of 3 caches just 4 miles west. That put them right off of Highway 4 on the way back to Stockton.

Two of them are accessible from a viewpoint area. Stone Walled is near one of the old rock fence lines in this area. This was a micro hidden in some rocks and Karen found it in fairly short order.

Then, walking the other way from the car we grabbed Cache With a View. This one just doesn’t keep the water out, and the log was wet. It’s important to have a good pen that will write on wet paper, because it’s not uncommon to find wet logs this time of year.

Hayward Hills

Took some time to head back to the east Hayward hills today. Parked at the Five Canyons Recreation Center trailhead and just kept hiking to the next nearest cache after I found one. Grabbed six that way, and visited LogSplitter again, with still no luck.

At 1106 I found squints patch cache by probing with my boot--thunk! Oh, there it is. It’s an ammo can full of patches.

I headed south a little bit to get CandleScents at 1128, which is a smelly-themed (good smells) cache. Didn’t take too long to find it, although the GPSr wasn’t very accurate with all the tree cover.

From here, I backtracked and stopped at LogSplitter, but still think I’d have to get the boots very wet and move berry vines to get it (it it’s still there after high water from the recent storms).

From LogSplitter I continued on up the canyon to Open Spaces. That’s an interesting name, because the way I came there was continuous tree cover in the canyon. But, the coordinates were pretty good, and I found it fairly quickly at 1220.

Creepy Crawler was just a short ways further up the canyon, and I found it quickly at 1233.

From here I started to climb out of the canyon and in about 0.25 miles came to Shady Grove. This was an easy find at 1251.

Now there was more climbing up to the ridge top separating Hayward from Palomares Canyon, and onto Bayview. This was a micro-cache, but it was pretty obvious where it was--found at 1317. Unfortunately, today was not a bay-view day. It was overcast and hazy and the bay just wasn’t visible.

From Bayview I walked down to the nearest subdivision trail head, out to Five Canyons Drive, and back to the Rec Center. One thing that was very interesting today was the solitude on the trails. I saw no one until I was coming down from Bayview and reached a paved road.

50% in Castro Valley

Had a couple of hours, so...

First, I dropped a travel bug in Tri Valley Travel Bug Hotel (it was roundTUIT which I retrieved from Dead Drop 238).

Then I stopped for a quick grab of HOWDY PARTNER at the Rowell Ranch Rodeo grounds.

From there I went to the end of Eden Canyon road looking for Garden of Eden, but didn’t find it. I was zeroing out in a pile of eucalyptus bark and didn’t want to dig through it. I was also a little disconcerted by a pack of yapping dogs that seemed to be coming closer. Now I see from the logs that maybe the coords are off a bit.

Driving back to the freeway on Eden Canyon road, I stopped to find The Two Litl Ps TB Bed & Breakfast Inn, where I grabbed another TB, "20th Anniversary" Grave Digger.

Just a short ways away (but a drive to get across to the south side of the freeway), I found RIDCA, which is right at a neighborhood trailhead. Following the trail, I attempted to find LogSplitter, but it was right in an area with a small stream running through it and quite a few berry vines. I wasn’t in the mood to get stuck with berry stickers and get my boots wet.

Walking back to the car, I continued on to Water Fall - NO PARKING, which is an artificial waterfall on a fairly busy road. Landscapers were working just across the street so I didn’t feel I could poke around in the bushes and trees without attracting their attention.

Dead Drop 238 Success (Livermore, CA)

Failed to find this one last Sunday. Today I caught Venona in an unguarded moment and he said a bit more than I asked. So we took up the trail where we lost it last Sunday, and it took us to... a place we had already discovered. However, knowing we were absolutely at the right spot, we searched more diligently and came up with the cache. First find since the large group found it on opening night, December 3, 2004.

Cross Words (Livermore, CA)

I couldn’t make any headway on Cross Words puzzle. All the words I could think of for the crossword questions didn’t fit together. But last night, during our search for Dead Drop 238, Geodanimal gave out one minor hint, and it triggered an idea. When I got home last night, I quickly worked out the puzzle. So, today on my way to Home Depot, I found the easy way to get to this one, located it quickly, and got out of there to dry out my feet. The long, wet grass just soaked my boots.

Dead Drop 238 (Livermore, CA)

Dead Drop 238 is an interesting (and hard) puzzle cache. It was presented with lots of build up in the forums as a spy thriller. A large group gathered to find it on December 3, 2004, and no one has found it since.

The Geodanimals joined me as we started our search at 6:45 PM. After 20 to 30 minutes, I found stage 1. From it, we recovered the coordinates for stage 2.

It was a quick walk to the location, and even though I chose the wrong side of the creek, there was a convenient way to cross. Our GPSrs seemed to be bouncing around a bit, but after a bit of rigorous searching Geodanimal found stage 2 and recovered a tool and directions to the next stage.

At this point, we became blocked. We couldn’t make sense of the directions to the next stage, or find the way we were supposed to get there. For another 2 hours, we walked back and forth on the paths, trying to find something that would make sense (or through blind luck, find the cache). We failed.

SK8 Sunken Gardens (Livermore, CA)

This one (SK8 Sunken Gardens) just recently became available again. Construction around the Livermore skate park had made it off limits. There are still lots of construction fences up, but the skate area is now open (landscaping, picnic area, and benches are still closed). Information is needed from the configuration of the park to derive 6 digits of the coordinates. Getting answers to the questions was straightforward. The derived latitude looked good, but the longitude had a hiccup. One of the supposed single digits came out to be 10. This seemed puzzling, but there was a way to interpret the results as a valid longitude. This, however, put me inside private property. I just searched along the latitude line, assuming that I only had about 100 yard strip of longitude to deal with. Given all that, there was only one place that made sense, and I found the cache quickly (but didn’t have a pen, so I had to walk back to the pickup to sign the log). I signed a completely blank log--to bad it’s not a FTF.

I emailed Marky and he acknowledged that a couple of questions were switched. The description is all fixed now, so no one else will have that problem.

Wrapping up some toughies

Today I was able to clean up three nagging caches that I haven’t been able to find. I started solving the Petroglyphs puzzle cache during Christmas and finished the puzzle as soon as I got back to an internet connection. I looked on December 31, but ran into thick bushes and lots of trash. Then, I was surprised by a worker(?) who drove up, but I didn’t hear. I walked around the corner, and we both were surprised.

I went back on January 4 and found a promising sign but did not find the cache. First of all, I was really disconcerted about the amount of trash I was digging through. Second, for some reason, I had in mind that I was looking for a micro and I wasn’t finding it in the obvious places. I emailed Blue iis, who had just recently logged it, and asked if I was close. His answer was that I was about a foot away. So, today at 0930 I made a quick grab.

During lunch, I decided to give No Hints Cache another try (I think I’d already been there three times). Today I thought a lot more about what I was seeing than just poking around. That paid off and I found the cache at 1258. It’s a very clever hide and pretty difficult.

Since I was feeling pretty good about finding caches, I decided to have another look for Water, Water Everywhere. This is a multi-cache, but the first leg was very hard for me. Even using the clues, I couldn’t find it. Again, as I thought more than poked, an idea just clicked, and I went and looked and there was the first stage.

Using the clues I tracked down the final cache, but not until I had first gone in entirely the wrong direction. Luckily, the area was closed today so no people around.

Countertop

The excuse for the day to go cache hunting was ordering a new bathroom countertop in San Ramon. But first I had some unfinished business in Pleasanton.

I had all but given up on SuperGenius #17 -- Lil Camo, which is in a nifty park in Pleasanton. I had looked at least two times earlier. Today, after a bit of searching, I found it at 0931. Perhaps the vegetation is just a bit thinner this time of year. By the way, this park has some cool play structures, especially a very long slide like a toboggan run down a hill.

Iron Horse This is on the Iron Horse Trail, obviously. I found it at 1136, but not without quite some effort. I thought I knew where, generally, it would be hidden, but I couldn’t find it. Finally, with a lot of manuevering I caught a glimpse of it, but it still took me a while to get it.

Danville Trolls showed up as close by, and I gave it a shot even though it’s a multicache and logs indicated trouble at stage 2. As the title suggests, each location is associated with a pedestrian bridge over a small creek that was nicely flowing this time of year. The first cache at the given coordinates was an easy find--in fact, I’m surprised it hasn’t been muggled. It’s that obvious.

1. I was then directed to stage 2. I couldn’t find this cache, just like others who logged in the past month or so. I used the hint, but that just seemed to confirm that the cache was missing. Rather than give up, I decided to walk on down the path to the next bridge and see if I could find stage 3.
2. When I got to the next pedestrian bridge, I used the hint, and quickly located the stage 3 cache.
3. Stage 4 took just a little bit of hunting, and then it was on to the next.
4. Stage 5 was also pretty easy and quick.
5. Stage 6 (the final cache) was harder. There was tree cover and the GPSr kept pointing a bit differently. I used the hint and finally found it. Just after I found the cache and extracted the log a gardener started blowing leaves off the trail and coming right toward me. I had to take the log and go wait on the bridge for him to finish before I could replace it.

From here, I went to Livorna Road in Alamo and hiked up into Diable Foothills Park. The first one I found was But I Really Gotta Go. It was easy to spot the hiding place and the joke from 100 yards away. A quick find.

I found Sam’s Stash in Diablo Foothills Regional Park at 1429. I came from the Livorna Trailhead, but there is probably a closer parking place. The cache was an interesting plastic container wrapped in a black plastic bag, which is now starting to show wear and tear. Someone has added a jar full of pennies that they want moved from cache to cache, but it’s very heavy. Probably pulls the plastic apart even more.

From Sam’s Stash I headed over to get How Now Brown Cow, which I found at 1451. It’s on a very steep hillside that overlooks an Alamo subdivision. Right at the cache site, kids (I assume) are building some wooden structure, and they left a saw. There are other structures on the back side of the hill that look very interesting--like ramps and jumps. One ramp is about 15 ft long, 1 ft wide, and over my head. Looks like maybe they’d ride their bikes off it.

At 1602 I found Limit Warning on the Iron Horse Trail in Alamo. It wasn’t easy to find, and the hint wasn’t helpful. Finally, by just thinking carefully, I figured out where it must be, and found it.

First First Find Attempt

Spotted a new local cache after getting home from church and no one had logged it yet. Even though it was raining, I decided to make my first First Find hunt. Tubular is in Sycamore Grove. I got my rain gear on and headed out. Stupidly, I went out on the wrong side of the creek. Rather than walking all the way back to the bridge, I just crossed the ford where the horse trail is (I was getting pretty wet anyway). Well, I looked for a long time with the GPS consistently pointing to a particular area, but I couldn’t find it. It’s the same kind of area (lots of Sycamore leaves) as Cache Cow, and I had to visit that one 3 times before finding it.

Amazingly, there were several other people out walking or running in the rain.

3 Jan 2005 update: First To Find was claimed yesterday afternoon by "kablooey" who noted that the cache was 60 feet away from where his GPSr zeroed out. Bummer! I should’a looked in the easy to get to logs.

3 Jan 2005 update 2: Took an hour to go back out and try to find it. I did. It wasn’t in the logs like I was expecting, but next to another Sycamore tree to the north. An easy find, if the coords had been better.