Long, but Rewarding Hike in Pleasanton Ridge

Today, Dan and Janet, Karen and I hiked into the northern part of Pleasanton Ridge in an attempt to get all of the caches in that area. We used the Longview Trailhead where there is no parking except down at the bottom of the hill a quarter of a mile away. We left home about 9:15 AM, got back to the car at 7:15 PM, and got home after eating at Chili’s around 9 PM.

More to the point, we had 4 major climbs, 14 miles on the odometer, and 13 finds. Just a great day in all respects. The morning was sunny, but by afternoon it had clouded over, the wind picked up, and we got a couple drops of rain. The hillsides were still green, wild flowers were abundant, and we had no problems.

My first cache was Just "monkeying" around. I had found this tree climbing cache a little over a month ago, but didn’t feel comfortable retrieving it in the slippery, raining conditions. Today I got it (without Dan’s help) at 10:50 AM, although being smarter than the average monkey, I used a tool so I didn’t have to climb so high. (My walking stick worked just great!)

We found A Simple Cache--Augustin Bernal at 11:19 AM (Dan and Janet had already found this one), and then went to Fishin’ with Monkeys (It’s a 2-fer!!). Janet and I searched for the micro while Dan went for the nearby larger container. Dan found his immediately, but we did have to help him a bit with the retrieval. Janet finally saw parts of the cache we were looking for. Only Dan could make the climb, and even he had difficulty. We got this completed at 11:56 AM.

Next, Karen and I found Star Puzzle at 12:54 PM. I asked Karen to search a log while I poked around some trees and bushes. She finally spotted it after nearly having her hand on it while talking to Dan. We solved the star puzzle fairly quickly, got a picture, and thus will get coordinates to Ailurophobia.

The rest were fairly easy to find. Here’s the list:

• Going Bannanas, 1:26 PM
• Turtle Pond, 1:46 PM. Poison oak is getting awfully close.
• Mary Pose I A, 2:18 PM
• The log cabin, 2:29 PM, although all the logs were gone
• Trail End 32, 3:10 PM
• Kilkare Canyon Overlook, 3:54 PM
• Walruz’ Pit Stop, 4:40 PM
• LeChuck’s Sinbad Treasure, 4:54 PM
• WalruZ @ 1K, 5:15 PM

Lafayette

Haven’t done any hunting since a week ago, but the weather was good today and I had the time. I originally thought I might go to the Martinez shoreline, but I decided to stop and hunt a couple real close to the 680/24 interchange in Walnut Creek, and then just kept going to the next closest one. I found 5 in miscellaneous open spaces, and then 4 more in the east side of Briones Regional Park.

Walnut Creek Ca$h (found at 9:55 AM) and Cache on Pooh Corner (found at 10:07 AM) are in the same Walnut Creek open space. It took a bit of driving around to find the trail head. The caches weren’t hard to find. The views from up on top of the ridge were pretty good of Walnut Creek and Mount Diablo. Unfortunately, I could hear the traffic noise from the freeway, which kind of spoiled the idyllic nature of the spot.

Just a short drive away I found Money Pit at 10:31 AM adjacent to a private park, but along a public walkway.

I drove north on Taylor and pulled off on Withers to check the MacGPS Pro map. Lo and behold, Hey, there’s a park down here! so I found it at 11:00 AM.

At bit farther north on Taylor I found Mesozoic Mesa at 11:22 AM. I wonder why this park has a dinosaur name?

The next closest cache was TP#1, which turned out to be a new one in Briones Regional Park. This one was just a short hike from the trail head. I found it at 11:49 AM. After checking, I realized there was another cache farther into the park, so I decided to just hike in for it. This was Blue Oak (on the Blue Oak trail, of course) and was up on top of a ridge--found at 12:45 PM.

Then the next closest one was just .35 miles west, so I decided to press on for it. It was a substantial climb, and the trails probably covered a mile to get there. But, Table Top was easily found at 1:36 PM. Table Top is one of the higher ridges, so the views were really good. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of bluish haze today.

Table Top seemed to be on a short-cut trail down the hill, so I took it and cut out a lot of distance. Not sure I’d want to come up that way though. On the way out, I realized, by looking at the GPSr track, that I had bypassed a cache on the way in. It was right on the trail. Bay Grove was super simple to find--it was out in the open with the lid off. Perhaps a critter dug it out of its hiding place, although the contents seemed undisturbed. I put it back where I thought it should be at 2:14 PM. Left my GPSr there, although I didn’t go far before I realized it.

Shell Ridge

Karen and I wanted to do some hiking to day in the Shell Ridge open space in Walnut Creek. Temps were in the low 70’s, trails were dry--a pretty nice day. We started with a couple of caches near Livorna Road.

Foothills Trail Cache is right at the Livorna staging area. I’ve parked here before on a caching hike, but this cache is pretty new. Found it after a short hunt, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. We then looked for Pico de Alamo in a nearby park (Livorna Park), but didn’t look very long when it wasn’t obvious.

Next we found Alamo Guy. I thought we’d have to walk up the hill, but we only had to go up a few steps. Pretty good camoflage on this one.

From here we went to the trail head at the end of South Wiget Lane (off of Ygnacio Valley Road). The trails into Shell Ridge here are kind of round about. We took several short-cuts. First we found Bug’s Life, then Birds of a Feather, and finally, LeChuck’s Forgotten Treasure. All of these were pretty straightforward to find.

Lake Chabot

Went with Dan and Janet today. They let me choose where, so I picked Lake Chabot. There is a new series of 10 caches along the Ten Hills trail and the trailhead is easy to get to on Redwood Road. In fact, it turns out that Dan has run these trails many times during his high school cross country season.

Trees and Stones (Big Ones)! is a multi that starts right at the parking lot. Dan got suckered in by a decoy indicator and believed that the coordinates we needed were missing, but Janet calmly retrieved them right under his nose. We set a waypoint and started off up the trail.

Ten Hills Trail #1 was the first one we came to and found at 11:22 AM. This was an introduction to most of these--lot’s of poison oak around, some pretty close the hiding spot. I know I walked through PO on several occasions, but I had long pants. Dan and Janet did not.

The next cache we came to was the hiding spot for Trees and Stones (Big Ones)!. The Bay tree (I believe) is a massive one. I found it at 11:40 AM.

All the rest we found were Ten Hills caches. We found them in this order:

• #2 at 11:47 AM
• #4 at 12:06 PM
• #5 at 12:34 PM. We made this one very hard by approaching from the wrong trail and traversing lots of poison oak.
• #8 at 1:31 PM
• #7 at 1:48 PM
• #6 at 2:02 PM
• #9 at 2:30 PM
• #10 at 2:45 PM

On the way back to the car we searched for #3, but could not find it in a reasonable amount of time.

Modesto Cache Trail

I headed east to Modesto about lunch time. Stopped in Manteca to quickly grab Spreckels Sugar at 10:45 AM--easy. Looked for 2 or 3 in Ripon, but made bad choices on which ones because they were the kind I don’t like. I should have gone for the trail along the river.

Took the off ramp at Standiford, and walked the path under the power lines and on top of the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct. First up was Start or Finish 1, which I found at 12:29 PM. Quarter Mile Record was next up; found at 12:34 PM. Branch Office was quickly found at 12:39 PM.

I bypassed a couple and then found The Road Less Traveled at 12:56 PM. At 1:14 PM I found Start or Finish 2. At this point I started retracing the path, and looking for ones that I had passed up.

I found 7477 at 1:32 PM. I just hadn’t looked carefully enough before. Just Another Altoids Tin fooled me the first time, but I found it at 1:56 PM.

Border Line was sneaky and in plain sight of muggles who might be walking out to their car. Finally found it at 2:07 PM just seconds before a car drove up.

I didn’t find them all along this trail. On the way home I stopped in Manteca to find the Roman GPSr puzzle cache at 2:51 PM. I’d looked before but was blocked by a construction fence and too many muggles to ignore the fence. Found it easily today.

Sycamore Grove

This afternoon I saw that I had missed noticing two new hides at Sycamore Grove. I went out just before dinner and made a quick hike to find them. Found Old Sycamore at 5:45 PM and Another Sycamore Cache at 6:02 PM. Just before reaching this last location I noticed a grazing doe that had not noticed me. I froze. Finally the doe looked up and saw me, but became curious and began to walk toward me. I’ve never had a deer do that. She probably advanced 20 yards towards me before she shied off. She never did bolt--just walked away.

Martinez quickies

Since Karen had a lengthy appointment at Kaiser in Martinez, I grabbed a couple of nearby caches. The first was California Riding and Hiking Trail #1 at 9:35 AM. It was a 0.1 mile jaunt up a hill. The second was Stars-N-Stripes, which I found up another hill at 9:50 AM.

Birthday barbecue

Today we took the family to Copperopolis and Jamestown to celebrate my birthday. Had a marvelous barbecue and fun time riding the steam train. As we were going up in the morning on highway 4, we stopped in Farmington to find Connie’s Ride at 9:45 AM.

In the afternoon, after riding the steam train, we got the virtual at the roundhouse, M.L.S.L at 4:00 PM.

On the way home we stopped at the Jamestown Cemetery to find Pushing Daisies at 4:55 PM. Just as we were signing the log another group of cachers showed up (3Taylor3).

Las Trampas Hell

Got a few things done around the house and then headed out to Las Trampas around 11 AM. I planned on making the trip into the devil’s hole area where there were a series of 7 caches I could visit. I expected it to be tough--it was. Lots of elevation change and 7 miles of hiking. Would have been more miles if I had not taken some of the short-cuts on use trails (mostly cow) I knew about.

First one I found was The long or the hard--you choose at 12:47 PM. I approached it from above, but I didn’t follow a main trail all the way to get there. Didn’t take long to find it. At the top of the ridge the views were excellent. I could see most of the tri-valley, the bay from Hayward to San Jose to San Francisco, the delta by Martinez, and Mt. Diablo.

Then I started dropping down into Devils Hole and found Road to Perdition at 1:39 PM. This was a bit of a scramble, but doable. Dropping down some more I came to Belly of the Beast. This has a terrain rating of 4--glad I didn’t slip. Cache was easy to find (at 2:08 PM), but I’m thinking it’s probably out of position. I left it where it was.

Purgatory was all the way down in the hole, hidden among some eucalyptus trees. The GPSr didn’t work very well, so I used the hint and found it at 2:33 PM. Then I started back up the steep hill on a single track trail that obviously doesn’t get much use. Finally got to Den of Iniquity (another terrain rating 4 cache). Found this one at 3:08 PM. Plodded on up the hill to 10-9-8-7-6...Fire! which I found at 3:41 PM. Just a few hundred feet away, I found June 4, 1988 after carefully winding through poison oak. Got this one at 3:57 PM.

All in all, this was a very tough 7 mile hike, but worth it. Very beautiful day, lots of wildflowers, and the vistas from the peaks and ridge tops was great.

Be prepared

Just drove over to Pleasanton to a park in which I’ve hunted two other caches and found Be Prepared at 2:29 PM.

Gilley’s Sunset

Just dropped by Sunset Park to hunt Gilley’s Sunset, which I found at 7:02 PM. It took quite a while to find it.

Homeward bound from the Central Coast

Headed back home today, but hunted a few caches along the way. We took Highway 41 from Morro Bay to Atascadero and found a few we didn’t get on the way to the coast. First we found Top of Summits at 12:22 PM. This used to be pretty isolated country, but now it’s part of Atascadero with some very classy homes, and a very pretty location. Close by, we next found Summits/morro rd. at 12:30 PM. Back on the highway, I found 41 West Morro rd. at 12:48 PM.

After a bit of searching, we found access to a little open space park in Atascadero and made a short hike to find Lions and rattlesnakes and poison oak, OH MY!!! at 1:28 PM and Turtlehead Cache at 1:36 PM.

We grabbed something to drink at Starbuck’s and headed north on 101, stopping at 2:35 PM to grab Caledonia Adobe, at the rest stop near Camp Roberts at 2:50 PM to get Binary Blues -- Can you find me "Mr Roberts"?, and at a dead end frontage road near San Ardo to get Binary Blues -- Black Gold at 3:09 PM.

King City was right on the edge of my PQ radius, so we stopped and got King City Travel Bug Inn at 3:39 PM and Saint Tony at 3:47 PM.

All in all, it was quite an enjoyable long weekend--great weather, fun hikes and exploring, and almost 50 caches.

South as far as Nipomo

Today we grabbed coffee at Kelly’s and headed south on Highway 1, past San Luis Obispo. Our first stop was in the Shell Beach area near Pismo. I found I Spy! quickly at 8:40 AM. Even though there were several folks around looking at the views, the cache hiding spot was blocked from their view. The next stop was at Shell Beach, a virtual where you have to count the number of steps down to the beach. Finished this at 9:09 AM. We looked for quite a while for Dinosaur Rock (I remember the dinosaur from my younger days), but it turns out the cache was archived just after I downloaded my pocket query.

Our next stop was in Arroyo Grande. As we took the off-ramp, Karen noticed a Trader Joe’s and wanted to shop, so I dropped her and went on to find a couple of nearby caches. Dewey’s Dusty Trail was pretty easy. Found it at 10:22 AM. Next I went for By Grace. Took me a while to find the right road, but then it was easy to find at 10:34 AM.

Picked up Karen and drove over to Stuff Mart which was in the same general shopping center. We found this one at 11:06 AM and then drove to downtown old Arroyo Grande. Found Verde Grande at 11:27 AM. Then while Karen shopped in the stores, I looked for some other downtown caches. Found How Now Hooscow! at noon. Karen took a picture of me with a fiberglass statue of Elvis so I could claim Frozen In Time locationless. Got this one at 12:05 PM. Then I got Fire Fire Fire... Thanks AGFD at 12:23 PM. This was a very public place.

Since we were getting hungry, and a guy we talked to at Shell Beach recommended Jocko’s in Nipomo, we went to eat there. Unfortunately, the lunch steaks aren’t prepared over the barbecue--but it was good, although the restaurant is packed with tables and kind of plain. After lunch, we just walked over to grab Jocko’s Juxtaposition at 1:41 PM. I was looking for a magnetic cache and couldn’t find it. Then Karen said what’s this paper? Turns out the key holder must have been muggled, but the log was left. I signed the log and returned it where I found it.

It was just a short drive to Downtown Nipomo History Lesson, which I found at 1:55 PM. Then we drove east out of town and a little ways on a dirt road to get Nipomo Foothills Lookout Point at 2:58 PM. And then we got Gateway to the Nipomo Cache Trail at 3:15 PM. I had to crawl around looking for this one for a while.

We returned to Arroyo Grande for an ice cream sundae at Doc Bernstein’s, and then grabbed A Great Big Arroyo Grande Welcome at 4:23 PM. Next we got Never on Sunday at 4:30 PM, just a short distance away. Talk about easy to find--can’t miss it. Drove to the west side of town and walked down a par course trail to find "J"iggle-free zone at 4:42 PM.

Well, that was a wrap for Nipomo and Arroyo Grande, so we started back to Cayucos, but detoured into Avila Beach and found Pier Pressure (a virtual) at 5:30 PM. Hunted for Another Flippin’ Cache, but I’m not sure if coords were spot on, and there were too many rocks to search under.

The last one for the day was The O.K. Corral just outside of Morro Bay on Highway 1. Found it at 6:24 PM.

Montana de Oro and San Simeon

On April Fool’s day we relaxed with a cup of coffee at Kelly’s in Cayucos before heading to Montana de Oro state park. We found Koala de Oro at 9:04 PM in a grove of the most mishapen Eucalyptus trees I’ve ever seen. Next we looked for Raven’s Watch, but after searching a bit we moved on and got Hide in Plain Sight at 9:53 AM. We then hiked the bluff trail to "As Far As You Can Go". We found a letterbox quickly, but the cache was not evident. Given it hasn’t been found since last October, it’s probably gone. Since we had to retrace our path, we stopped at Raven’s Watch again, and this time found it at 10:50 PM.

Leaving Montana de Oro, we headed north to Cambria, where we had lunch at Robin’s. Just across the street from Robin’s, I spotted this unique weather vane, so I claimed How Vane is it locationless cache.

 

After some shopping, we headed even farther north to find San Simeon Seal Spot at 3:00 PM. Even further north, where the highway starts to get high up the mountain (more like cliffs) I found Slide after a scramble down a thistle infested slope. On our return south, we stopped at San Simeon State Beach and hiked out on the boardwalk into the marsh and found Boardwalk at 4:33 PM.